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THE CLERICAL LIBRARY 


Eight Volumes, Cloth, Each, $1.50, 
Sent post or express paid on receipt of price 
SpecIAL Price FOR CoMPLETE SETS. 


For Students and the Clergy of all denominations, is 
meant to furnish them with stimulus and suggestion in 
the various departments of their work. 

The best thoughts of the best religious writers are 
here furnished in a condensed form. 


J. Outline Sermons on the Old Testament. This 
volume, containing 139 outlines of sermons by 46 emi- 
nent English and American clergymen, is fully indexed 
by subjects and texts. 300 pages. 

2. Outline Sermons on the New Testament, Con- 
tains 300 outlines by 77 eminent English and American 
clergymen; fully indexed by subjects and texts. 284 pages. 

The outlines furnished in these two volumes have been 
arawn from the leading Pulpit thinkers of almost every 
denomination in Great Britain and America. The sub- 
jects treated are practical rather than controversial. a 

3. Outlines of Sermons to Children, This volume 
contains 97 outlines of sermons with numerous Anec- 
dotes, fully indexed by subjects and texts. 302 pages. 

4, Anecdotes Iilustrative of Old ‘Testament ‘Texts, 
529 anecdotes and illustrations, fully indexed by sub- 
jects and texts. Dr. Guturiz says his hearers often 
remember the illustrations in his sermons when they had 
forgotten the abstract truth. 338 pages. 

5. Anecdotes Illustrative of New Testament Texts. 
614 anecdotes and illustrations, fully indexed by sub- 

¥ects and texts. 392 pages. 

6. Expository Sermons and Outlines on the Ola 
Cestament. These sermons by distinguished preachers 
are rich in application and will be an education and in- 
spiration to many. 302 pages. 

7. Pulpit Prayers by Eminent Preachers, These 
prayers are fresh and strong; the ordinary ruts of con- 
ventional forms are left and the fresh thoughts of living 
hearts are uttered. 290 pages. 

8. Platform and Pulpit Aids, Consisting of striking 
speeches and addresses on Home and Foreign Missions, 
the Bible, Sunday-school, Temperance, and kindred 
subjects, with illustrative anecdotes. Just the book an 
over-worked pastor who has many speeches to make, 
with little time for study, will appreciate. 294 pages. 


The Glerical Library. 


BS eee eC vi 


4ND 


merely Al bo, 


vebae 


tbartford, Conn, 
THE S. S. SCRANTON CO. 


Sch. R 


PREFACE. 


Wuie the demands of the Christian platform are 
constantly increasing, and, indeed, almost rival those 
of the Christian pulpit, it is remarkable that help- 
ful books for speakers are exceedingly rare. The 
present volume is an attempt to supply a great 
and obvious blank. It contains speeches by the 
most eminent Christian orators of the present and 
recent times, and a selection of fresh, pithy, and 
sometimes humorous illustrations. The speeches 
are taken from reports in the Church of England 
Temperance Chronicle, the Christian World, and 
other journals, local allusions being, so far as 


possible, omitted. 


INDEX OF AUTHORS. 


Prebendary Ainslie, 18a 

Rev. W. Arthur, 165. 

Rev. G. S. Barrett, 62. 

Bishop of Bedford, 169. 

Rev. W. Brock, 39. 

W. S. Caine, Esq. M.P., 178, 
186. 

Very Rev. The Dean of Canter- 
bury, 46. 

Bishop of Carlisle, 130. 

Bishop Boyd Carpenter, 159, 164. 

Very Rev. Dean Close, 132. 

Rev. Vernon J. Charlesworth, 279. 

Very Rev. The Dean of Chester, 
161. 

Rev. J. P. Chown, 47, 125. 

Rev. J. Hunt Cooke, 256. 

Rev. J. Culross, D.D., 13%. 

Rev. R. W. Dale, D.D., 43. 

Rev. J. C. Edghill, D.D., 24a 

Rev. Dr. Edmond, 95. 

Very Rev. H. T. Edwards, Dean 
of Bangor, 219. 

Bishop Ellicot, D.D., 57. 


Ven. Archdeacon Farrar, D.D, 
F.R.S., 188, 206, 228, 249. 

Rev. Canon Fleming, 172. 

Rev. J. Comper Gray, 265. 

Rev. Newman Hall, 22, 

Rev. J. W. Horsley, 182. 

Rev. R. H. Howard, 269. 

Rev. H. Jones, 198. 

Dr. Livingstone, 112, 

Bishop of London, 176. 

Rev. J. A. Macfadyen, D.D., 117. 

Rev. R. Moffat, D.D., 107. 

Sir W. Muir, K.C.S.L, 114. 

Rev. A. Mursell, 30. 

Rev. J. Parker, D.D., 18, 25, 129. 

Rev. W. Morley Punshon, D.D., 
I, 100, 127, 139. 

Rev. Principal Rainy, D.D., & 

Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, 71, 149. 

Rev. C. A. Stark, 272. 

Rev. A. Moody Stuart, D.D., 82, 
122. 

Most Rev. Archbishop Tait, 156, 

Rev. Canon Tristram, 7, 


Rev. E. Herber Evans, 16, 51, 168. | Rev. S. Vincent, 26a 
wi 


I. HOME WORK. 


I. The Power of the Christian Press. Sy 
Dr. W. Morey PuNSHON. 


I REJOICE in the operations of this Society because it affords 
one of those opportunities which are none too many in this 
age of ours, that tend to show how in our work for Christ 
all Evangelical Churches have a substantial unity about 
them which is the unity of the spirit kept in the bond of 
peace. I rejoice inthe operations of the Society, moreover, 
because it is a sort of moral telephone that makes men 
heard at a distance from those to whom they are speaking, 
annihilating all distance, and, as Winter Hamilton said, 
“treading continents into contiguities, and making a neigh- 
bourhood of the world.” I rejoice further, because it beats 
the telephone, inasmuch as the telephone can only repro- 
duce the living voice ; but by the operations of this Society 
the worthies of the former time, being dead, yet speak. I 
rejoice, too, because it asserts Christ’s right to reign in the 
realm of literature. I wish it all success in its battle with 
impurity and evil for the supremacy of the literature of 
the world. I rejoice again because it seems to me to issue 
those publications which are exactly suited to the wants of 
this busy, bustling age. I am afraid that the remark made 
has a great deal of truth in it, that the age of ponderous 
tomes is gone. Men want something sharp and incisive— 
something that a wayfaring man can read as he runs; for 
running seems to be characteristic of the fast life which 
now-a-days most of us have to lead. It seems to me as 
though there were an exaggeration in the love of sharpness, 
and incisiveness, and earnestness, which is rapidly growing 
into an evil. Earnestness, especially, is the God of this 
age’s reverence. It does not matter what a man may be; 
earnestness, like charity, is made to cover a multitude of 
B 


2 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


sins. But it is necessary to take hold of this, seeing that 
it exists, and endeavour to meet the popular hunger for 
something short, and sharp, and decisive, by the presenta- 
tion of truth in a compressed yet attractive form. I fully 
coincided in a remark about the effects which in former 
times have been produced by these short treatises, I 
thought of Peter Waldo, for example ; how he set to work 
with his cargo of tracts among the Piedmontese valleys ; 
and how, from his evangelical and tractarian (in the proper 
sense of the word) labours, there sprang those Waldensian 
Churches which, through thirty-five persecutions, held fast 
the pure truth of Christ, although gashed by the spear 
of Savoy and scorched by the fagot of Rome. Then I 
thought of John Wycliffe, the grand tract-writer and dis- 
tributor. And, my lord, I suppose you know that it is five 
hundred years this very year, almost this very month, since 
he was summoned by Bishop Courtenay to the Convoca- 
tion at St. Paul’s when good John of Gaunt stood by his 
side, and the controversy waxed so high as to whether he 
was to stand or sit during the trial that the assembly broke 
up in disorder. I thought of John Wycliffe as a tract- 
writer and distributor, and I saw in vision one of his tracts 
carried in the pocket of a Bohemian nobleman into Bohemia, 
and lent by him to a man whose name was John Huss, 
bringing him to the knowledge of the purity and power of 
the truth as it is in Jesus. Then I came a little further 
down,and | thought how the early champions of the Reform- 
ation prized this form of usefulness ; and how Farrell, the 
first French Reformer, first formed a Tract Society in Basle, 
in order that he might thus gain a hold upon the under- 
standinys and consciences of men. And then I thought of 
Martin Luther, and of that remarkable incident when, in 
one of his melancholy moods, he thought the Author of 
vil was present in bodily shape when he was confined in 
\Wurtemberg Fortress, and how he vanquished the devil by 
flinging an inkstand at his head. I thought of the power of 
a sanctifNed inkstand in the hand of such a man as that, 
and although Luther’s work will live as long as the world 
lives, and although some of his greater works are yet in 
the hands of students who know how to praise them, yet I 
remember that God has honoured some of his lighter and 
similar works for the advancement of His kingdom in the 


POWER OF THE CHRISTIAN PRESS. 3 


world. Why, he wrote about the most uninteresting thing 
that could be written in all the world, surely, though it is a 
necessary sort of thing ; he wrote prefaces to a great many 
of the works that he published ; he wrote a preface to his 
comment upon the Epistle to the Galatians, and that 
preface found its way to the heart of a good Bedfordshire 
tinker, named John Bunyan. And he wrote a preface to 
his comment upon the Epistle to the Romans, and it was 
while reading that preface in Aldersgate Street that John 
Wesley became arrested. By the way, I had sent me 
at our Wesleyan Mission House last week a translation 
of “ Pilgrim’s Progress” into Chinese, with illustrations. 
There was Christian, and Christiana, and Mercy, and the 
rest all represented as Chinamen and Chinawomen, with 
the customary pigtails, and all. Then I thought again of 
that wonderful and bright succession which is noticed in 
your “ Jubilee Memorial.” Here I rather want the oppor- 
tunity of saying that John Wesley was a zealous tract- 
writer, and an efficient tract distributor, fifty years before 
the Tract Society was born. Yet, strangely enough, the 
“Jubilee Memorial” does not mention his name—please in 
the next edition to put itin. I say I thought how an old 
Puritan doctor wrote a book years and years ago called 
the “ Bruised Reed,” which fell just at the right time into 
the hands of Richard Baxter, and brought him under the 
influence of the enlightening power of the Spirit of God; 
and then Baxter’s ministry was like the sun in his strength, 
and he wrote a book called ‘ The Call to the Unconverted,” 
which continued to speak long after Baxter himself had 
ceased to speak with human tongue. That “Call to the 
Unconverted” went preaching on until it got into the 
hands of Philip Doddridze (prepared by his pious mother’s 
teaching) from the Dutch tiles of a mantel-piece, with very 
quaint Scriptural stories ; and it was the means of enlight- 
ening him to a broader knowledge, and a richer faith, and 
a deeper experience of the things of God. And then I[ 
thought how Doddridge wrote a book called “ The Rise 
and Progress of Religion in the Soul,” which, just at a 
critical period in his history, fell into the hands of William 
Wilberforce, who wrote a book called * Practical Christi- 
anity,” which far down in the sunny Isle of Wight fired 
the heart of a clergyman, who has attained perhaps in 


4 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


connection with this Society, the broadest and widest repu- 
tation of all—for who has not heard of Legh Richmond ? 
He wrote the simple annal of a Methodist girl, and pub- 
lished it under the title of “The Dairyman’s Daughter ;” 
and I should like to know into how many languages that 
has been translated, and been made of God a power for the 
spread of truth? Thus far the analogy and the sequence 
of the “Jubilee Memorial.” But there is another sequence. 
The same book on “ Practical Christianity” went right 
down into a secluded parish in Scotland, and it found there 
a young clergyman who was preaching a Gospel that he 
did not know, and it instructed him in the way of God 
more perfectly, and he came forth a champion valiant for 
the truth upon the earth until all Scotland rang with the 
eloquence of Thomas Chalmers. Look at it. Nota flaw 
in the chain. Richard Sibbes, Richard Baxter, Philip 
Doddridge, William Wilberforce, Legh Richmond, Thomas 
Chalmers—is not that apostolical succession? Then going 
abroad. I do not know whether we are sufficiently ace 
quainted with some of the facts in the history of French 
Protestantism. Admiral Coligny was wounded dangerously 
at the siege of St. Quentin, and during the tedium of along 
convalescence his brother brought him some tracts, and it 
was by tract-reading that he was made acquainted with 
the truth of the Gospel, of which he became a Huguenot 
champion. Then some of these tracts went off and got 
somehow or other into a convent, where the Lady Abbess 
was converted by reading one of them, and, that so 
thoroughly, that she had to flee from France and take 
refuge at Heidelberg, in the Court of Frederick IIL, of the 
Palatinate. And, by-and-by, she did as all good ladies 
do—she married, and her husband was Prince William of 
Orange. Who knows how much of the sturdy glorious 
stubbornness, so to speak, of William of Orange of the 
Revolution came from the blood of his ancestress, who was 
thus marvellously converted? Oh, my lord, God has 
various ways of working! “The wind bloweth where it 
listeth ; we hear the sound thereof ; we cannot tell whence 
it cometh or whither it goeth ;” but it is bearing seed upon 
its wings, and lo! ripening grain there where sower never 
trod, and lo! waving harvests ingathered where plough 
was never driven. The bird sometimes, scared by the 


POWER OF THE CHRISTIAN PRESS. 5 


tramp of feet, or by the hum of men, drops from its beak 
something that it is carrying to its young; the seed is 
lodged in the fissures of a wall, but, by-and-by, the in- 
herent life becomes stronger than the incumbent masonry, 
and upon the ruins of a dismantled temple a noble tree 
arises. It seems to me the need is just as great as it ever 
was. The ark of God was never carried out into a hotter 
battle—it was never surrounded by fiercer antagonism than 
it is to-day. And these still small voices in which the 
Lord has so often revealed His presence are just as neces- 
sary for the peoples to-day as in any former age of the 
world. And, my lord, there is hunger of heart for them. 
We have not to complain that the people do not like these 
things ; the language is, ‘“ Evermore give us this bread.” I 
wonder that anybody should be so foolish as to try to 
satisfy hungry people by anything else than the Gospel. 
Why flourish the weapons of the nursery when we have the 
sword of the Spirit in our hands? I do believe there 
never was more than at the present time a growing hunger 
for this Word of Life. I wish it were as true of us now as 
it used to be when one of the supporters of the Romish 
Church in the Reformation period said, rather growlingly, 
“The Gospellers of these days do fill the realm with so 
many of their noisome little books that they be like swarms 
of locusts which did infest the land of Egypt.” I do not 
think we can do better than earn that reputation now, and 
therefore it is that I wish all possible success and blessing 
to the operations of the Religious Tract Society. Let me 
say one word upon individual duty at this crisis. We want 
more personal service. There is a growing tendency, per- 
haps, in some quarters to condone for the lack of personal 
service by the willingness to direct, or to criticise, or to 
subscribe, as if a coin—the noblest that was ever minted 
with the image of its Ceesar—could ever be an equivalent 
for a living man—a man with a soul, a conscience, and a 
will. No; we want the Lord’s freemen to work in the 
Lord’s service ; everything around us seems to tell us of 
the importance of this sense of personal responsibility. 
The more we have of it the more we find that responsibility 
is not dependent upon the riches or upon the poverty of a 
man’s moral capital. Some men are royal both in oppor- 
tunities and in resources ; to other men chances only come 


6 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK, 


seldom of successful teaching ; but it is demanded of all 
that the use which they make of what they have is the 
wisest ; just as the life of an animalcule while its hour lasts 
may be as complete and as busy as the life of the patriarch 
of years; and just as the circle of an emmet’s eye may be 
as perfect as the circle of the heavens. And we look to 
the Master's life to see how the thought of responsibility 
to His Father prompted Him to the most perfect conse- 
cration. Listen as in the glow of His human youth He 
announces His separation to a work so sacred and so 
constraining as to be above the claims of home. “ How 
is it that ye wist not that I must be about My Father's 
business?” See the same spirit in His brief, bright 
ministry, burdening His manhood with a yoke which His 
loving oneness with the Father made it quite easy to bear. 
Does He heal the man that was born blind? What is the 
motive that makes the healing fly with swifter wings? “I 
must work the works of Him that sent Me; for the night 
cometh when no man can work.” Is He at the well’s 
mouth at Sychar ready to open up the treasures of the 
upper springs to His half-educated disciple? How 
sublimely His purpose towers above the force of prejudice 
and the force of passion? “My meat isto do the will of 
Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.” Ay, and if 
we pass on to the unquiet eventide, when, instead of rest, 
weariness and fainting came, and when the shadows of His 
passion gathered around Him, and what does He say? 
He says, with His head bowed already for the baptism of 
blood, yet lifting itself for the moment in the consciousness 
of a fulfilled mission, “I have glorified Thee on the earth, 
I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.” 
That is the pattern of our consecration. We are to live 
and labour after His measure. Our talents are to be laid 
out for Him, and so laid out that in blessed using they 
shall double themselves in their returns, and shall bring for 
His blessed service the gold of holy character, and precious 
stones gathered out of the world’s dark mine—dy our hands 
—to sparkle in the Kedeemer’s crown. 


CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. J 


II. Christian Literature. Sy Rev. Canon 
TRISTRAM. 


IN explaining the three-fold reasons which bound him to 
the Society, said: “He felt bound to it as a missionary 
man, as a scientific man, and as a Churchman. In the first 
place as a missionary man he was especially bound to the 
society. He could not conceive how it would be possible 
for the Church Missionary Society, with which he was 
principally connected, to carry on its work without the aid 
of the Bible Society and its interpreter, the Religious Tract 
Society. It would be the missionary without the literature. 
To send their missionaries without literature would be like 
sending workmen without tools, soldiers without a supply 
of arms ; and to rely upon literature without the living voice 
of the preacher would be to send the arms and make a ship- 
ment of the military stores, but to leave the regiment behind. 
They must have a living voice as well as a written word. 
But there were places where the silent preacher could enter, 
where the ear was adder-deaf to the voice of the living 
preacher, and that was the work of this Society at home 
and abroad. Book-hawking and colportage had done a 
mighty work, and were still doing it, especially in those 
countries where the living voice cannot be uplifted. The 
work of the Society almost ranged from Pole to Pole, and 
it had one message everywhere. He was bound to the 
Society as a scientific man. He remembered hearing Dr. 
Arnold uttering a favourite saying of his, that what they 
wanted was not so much religious books as books on 
secular subjects written in a religious tone. He (Canon 
Tristram) was of opinion that they wanted both, and he 
was bound to say that the Tract Society had solved the 
problem of supplying secular literature with a religious 
tone. It was a different thing to avow one’s belief in the 
Word of God among scientific sceptics, from what it was to 
speak before a sympathetic audience at Exeter Hall. By 
-such publications the world is able to see that men can 
grasp science without losing the grand old truth. The 
third reason why he was bound to the Society was because 
he was a Churchman, for it was the grandest Church 
society in England, He would tell them why. It saved 
him much trouble. He never dreamt of reading a tract 


8 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


with the imprimatur of the Tract Society upon it—that 
was to say, he never read it to see whether it was fit to 
give away. He had the greatest confidence in the Society, 
and its imprimatur was enough. There were other societies, 
but he would not circulate one of their books without 
looking it through beforehand. They heard a good deal 
in their days about unsectarian teaching. They were 
all agreed on one thing, that Bible reading without Bible 
teaching was an utter farce. While they did not want to be 
sectarian it was impossible to teach truth and Christianity 
to the youngest as well as the oldest without being dogmatic. 
He liked every one of the books and tracts of this Society 
because they were saturated with dogmatic teaching. 
There was no sectarianism in any one of them, but they 
were thoroughly dogmatic. If he wanted to teach the 
doctrines of the Church of England, or prove anything 
Protestant, Evangelical, and sound, he should go to the 
Religious Tract Society’s works. He was sure he would 
find no mistaking of the emotional for the devotional, He 
would find no substitution of sensationalism, whether that 
sensationalism took the form of spiritual emotion or sensa- 
tional services. In fact he would find every need of a 
parochial minister and Cathedral minister supplied by the 
works of this Society. Their churches were multiplying in 
the land ; everywhere they were rising, and they thanked 
God for it. These churches and chapels were as so 
many stationary lamp-posts, giving a bright light on one 
side of the road; but only let the books and tracts get 
into the home, and each traveller would be carrying the 
lamp for himself, which would guide him in his right path.” 
Canon Tristram concluded by quoting the words of a grand 
old bishop who, while defending the Episcopacy, said, “‘ If 
there must be outward difference and judgment in matters 
of outward policy, why should not our hearts be still 
one?’” 


III. The Aggressive Work of the Church. 2 
Rev. PRINCIPAL Ratny. 


IT was a very great privilege to take part in this great and 
pressing subject ; but though he had a sincere and warm 
interest in the aggressive work of the Church, there were a 


AGGRESSIVE WORK OF THE CHURCH. 9 


great many who had won greater distinction and success 
in that work than any he could pretend to have, and who 
could have spoken with far more power and instruction to 
them upon it. He was, however, glad to speak upon this 
subject, and no subject was better entitled to the best 
thoughts and efforts of any. One thing that suggested 
itself to him was that this was a work in which they often 
met with difficulties. There were difficulties in it that 
sometimes seemed to prove themselves to be insuperable. 
It was quite certain that we cannot of our own hand or by 
our own strength turn failure into success. We cannot 
bargain that for so much pains we shall have so much 
success, and yet in this work, he believed, ordinarily, we 
should count that when difficulties are felt to be great they 
are not meant to bring our work or our expectation to an 
end, but to set us to find out the reasons why we do not 
succeed. Sometimes, no doubt not unfrequently, it seemed 
of some of the most honoured agents that they were as the 
key which made the bolts fly back whereby a great door 
and effectual was opened. But there were those who really 
wanted to do work in this matter, but who felt they were 
going round and round some impalpable wall, which they 
could not get through. There were ministers and congre- 
gations who had around them a population needing an ag- 
gressive work, and they would like to do something in it, 
and they have tried it and nothing seems to be coming of it. 
But in this matter there were various ways of dealing with 
difficulties. There was a way of dealing with difficulty in 
which a man gives up and says “I have tried andI have made 
nothing of it,’ and he consents to be discouraged. There was 
another way—and he did not know if it were much better 
—in which the effort is not in a certain sense thrown up. 
The man and the congregation keep pegging away year 
after year. They are doing not less than they were doing 
before, but not apparently with any more earnestness or 
intensity or agonising of mind or heart about it. They 
just hope on, and go on in a certain cheerful temper with- 
out any particular fruit at all. But he rather thought that 
if success is being prepared for any of us in connection 
with difficulties it is when these difficulties throw us back 
in the line that is indicated by our Lord when He said 
that there were some spirits that do not go out except by 


10 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


fasting and by prayer. When people are thrown back and 
find out, as they had not found out, and as it was not easy 
for flesh and blood to find out, what was the meaning of 
that word referred to by the first speaker, “I believe in 
the Holy Ghost,” it might be a necessary education for us, 
with a view to our success, to be sent down into a vale of 
humiliation to learn in a very special and new manner 
what it was to believe in the Holy Ghost. With reference 
to the work and the call to which Christ set His Church, it 
was no light matter for our Lord Himself, and it was not 
intended to be always a light matter for His servants 
either. The name “ageressive work” we owed very much 
to Dr. Chalmers. One of his distinctions—he had a great 
deal to do in setting on the Church in Scotland to realize 
the duty in this department—was the distinction between 
aggressive work and attractive work. We were not to be 
satisfied with hoping that the people would be drawn to 
us, but go forth and strike out among them; go forth in 
the way of aggression—Christian aggression. Now, the 
methods which Dr. Chalmers suggested and practised in 
the way of aggression were very much on the lines of what 
we might call ordinary and even pastoral assiduities— 
diligent visiting, not by the minister only, but by visitors, 
who went forth bearing the message of salvation—seeking 
to gather people into the congregations, where they might 
be under the preaching of the gospel—faithful preaching ; 
hold meetings, kitchen meetings, all sorts of meetings. 
That, unquestionably, must be a great part—he would say 
a fundamental kind of work if we were to have steady 
continual, progressive aggression in this great field. He 
was going to say that, in connection with the experiments 
that were made, and had been made both in this country 
and in America, various modifications of aggressive work— 
evangelistic work—-had been suggested, and we were all 
therefore familiar, and in many respects happily familiar, 
with trains of meetings, the power of which both to draw 
people together and the fitness of them to operate upon 
the people when they came, was connected with a peculiar 
character imparted to the whole aspect and character of 
the meeting. Evangelistic meeting, in which everything 
was concentrated on the work of awakening and conver- 
sion, in which the reiterated solicitudes, the continued 


AGGRESSIVE WORK OF THE CHURCH. 1 


wd 


meeting after meeting, and the reiteration and pleading 
went on, and the impression was more and more strongly 
made that the meeting and those who were conducting it 
meant business, that they were aiming at something, that 
they were aiming at bringing persons presently to Christ, 
was a kind of work which was unquestionably abused, 
that was to say it was conducted in such a way that it 
fell into ruts, and people were carrying it on in a kind 
of imitative way that was just a harping on strings that 
were worn out, but which we knew—and had specimens 
of it of a very impressive kind—could be made in fit 
hands singularly effective and singularly impressive. 
Speaking of Mr. Moody, it appeared to him that his 
power to draw, and to make his way to the minds and 
hearts of men apart from his great natural capacity— 
for Mr. Moody, it must be remembered, was a singularly 
able man, a man who had natural ability, which must not 
be underrated—lay in that gift of faith which seemed to 
be given to him, in virtue of which there was always an 
impression—if he might use an expression of that kind— 
that he meant business, that he was aiming at something, 
and that the something he aimed at was not shallow or 
superficial, not a mere fit of excitement, but was nothing 
less than repentance and conversion to God—worthily 
conceived and earnestly enforced. He was convinced that 
this kind of agency had an important place, and also there 
were sections of the population which would seem some- 
times to be—probably always to be—in a condition in 
which work of this kind was peculiarly fitted to make an 
impression, to bring them within the range of the activities 
that are going on, as well as fitted to make an impression 
of a favourable kind when people were got to come to the 
meeting. Work of that kind had been going on, and very 
_usefully and profitably going on, in a manner we mighit 
describe in a general way as outside the Churches—outside 
the denomination. But he would like to put this question 
whether there ought not to be more of effort to connect 
this work with their congregations, with their Churches, 
and with their Church life, where it could be fitly and 
fruitfully carried on. It might be that an individual con- 
gregation could not supply all the materials that were 
necessary for carrying on work of this kind in all its 


12 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK, 


branches, sustaining it for a time with the energy and 
multiplicity of operation that were required, but the agency 
of a number of congregations might be turned on for a 
time in connection with one congregation which was 
situated in the midst of a district like that, and that per- 
haps had been in a discouraged and mouldering condition, 
in the midst of a population that greatly required Christian 
work. He knew that in one congregation this operation 
had been carried on with very marked and very hopeful 
success. The people had been drawn to meetings in the 
church—all this mission work had been going on in the 
church—they had been impressed, they had been awakened, 
many of them, by God’s grace, had been converted in that 
church, and then the church became their religious home, 
the place where they were to be instructed and built up, 
where they were to be under discipline, where they were 
to be under Christian congregation, and instead of being 
lost in a sort of haze there, they were taken in hand and 
placed under an energetic ministry. He thought that was 
a matter that well deserved their consideration. Another 
matter that he wanted to refer to was this—what was 
necessary in order that evangelistic work, on whatever lines 
it was to go and in connection with whatever view of the 
agencies it was to be carried on, might be vigorous and 
effective. Now, in order to this, we needed to have the 
congregational life of our congregations roused and 
strengthened ; we needed all of us to be brought to a 
higher conception of what devolved upon each of us as 
Christians. ‘There was a text which said that “to every 
one was given his work.’ Now, it was quite true that 
we were not all of us qualified to engage in exhortation. 
There was a great variety of works, benevolent, kindly, 
and helpful, in various degrees in which people, according 
to their different gifts, might be engaged. It would be a 
great thing if, in our congregations and in this aggressive 
work, the members, according to their gifts, greater or 
smaller, whether their work should bear more directly or 
less directly on the precise point of instructing people in 
godliness and bringing them into Christ—if they were in 
connection with Church life and Church work, and under- 
stood to be in the Church’s service, so that whatever they 
were doing should have the stamp upon it, “ Whatsvever 


AGGRESSIVE WORK OF THE CHURCH. 13 


I do in word or deed, I do it in the name of the Lord 
Jesus Christ.” We might not be qualified some of us to 
go so directly to the main operations of evangelistic work, 
although very likely if we began we should find that 
aptitudes were produced or revealed that were not suspected 
at first, but if we were found engaged in the service of the 
Church, doing what we could do, whether it was greater or 
smaller, in the service of Christ, and with the view of help- 
tng on the work, then what we did would have the character 
of Christian work ; it would be done in the name of Christ, 
and we should be all of us combining and conspiring to 
carry on the great work together. He heard the other day 
of a meeting at which a man appeared who was not sober 
and was giving some trouble, and they were getting him 
disposed of when a person came and said, “If you please, 
I am a very young Christian, and I am not able to do 
much for Christ, but I could see that man home.” The 
drunken man was put in this person’s charge, and he saw 
him home, but he was not content with seeing him home. 
He had stuck to him ever since, and had not let him go, 
and he was at him, the speaker believed, at this time, and 
what one hoped was that the result would be for great 
good to both of them. He merely produced that as an 
illustration of the importance of their being regimented 
and embodied in the service. If that was to be the case, 
it must depend very much on their ministers and leading 
office-bearers devoting attention to providing work, open- 
ing channels of work, and having work ready in the various 
departments for the people that were willing to work. 
There were a great many people, especially in the opening 
stages of their Christian life, that would like to get some 
work if they saw anything that they really felt they could 
usefully do, and it was a wrong to Christ’s cause and to 
such people if the members of their Churches did not 
somehow contrive to get into connection with them and 
to confer with them as to what they could give them to 
do, and what they would be willing to do for the Church. 
Another view in connection with this that he would like to 
suggest was, that if this aggressive work was to go pros- 
perously on, there would in a larger degree be needed the 
operation and activity of all really earnest people who 
were willing to do anything in the work. Probably it was 


14 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


true, with all the good that had been doing—and they 
were not to undervalue it—that the methods were still 
often too wholesale, and that there ought to be more 
detail—more detailed care and more detailed work than 
we have been able as yet to organize. He supposed—and 
he spoke under correction of those that knew better and 
had more experience—that if they had in hand the effort 
to reclaim a drunkard who was in a state that was not 
unhopeful, and yet was not delivered from vice and sin, it 
would be a great thing if they could just put on to him 
some one person, and make it that one person’s one busi- 
ness first to look after that one man—to be kind to him, to 
be patient with him, to be attentive to him, to be helpful 
to him, and to try to do him good. There were many 
cases in which something of the same principle might be 
desirable to be carried out; and when a certain class was 
come toof those who did not attend ordinances—he meant 
that rather better class who did not choose to be dealt with 
in the wholesale way, and did not choose to be visited and 
dealt with in the same way as another class of people were 
willing to be dealt with—he did not know how they were 
to be reached individually, unless it were contrived to sort 
them out one by one, and to find out individual people 
that would get at them in a-quieter and more indirect way, 
and endeavour to get hold of and influence them one by 
one and man by man. On all these and on other grounds, 
he was convinced that it was of great importance that 
there should be realized all over the congregations of the 
Church a livelier sense of personal responsibility and more 
of a willingness to be personally employed—to have it 
understood that we were willing to be personally employed 
whether in the more conspicuous or in the more humble 
and unconspicuous walks that belonged to this whole work 
in general. Unquestionably if we were to have success 
granted to us, that success would come in connection with 
those who engaged in the work—not merely their mis- 
sionaries whom they hired, and sent into the field, and 
whom they expected to be prayerful, earnest, devoted men ; 
not merely their ministers, in whom they hoped for the 
same qualities; not merely even their elders that had a 
turn for missionary work ; but when those who engaged in 
this work and who sought to urge it on and whose desires 


AGGRESSIVE WORK OF THE CHURCH. 15 


—— ee 


were supposed to be expressed in the work were persons 
who were really growing in fidelity and in love, who were 
realizing what it was to be converted, what it was to be 
delivered from worldliness and sin, what it was to be 
raised from a low type of Christian living that was on the 
borders of something else, and seeking to realize what it 
was to follow the Lord fully. Christianity was meant to 
exist and to signalise its triumphs in connection with the 
walks and exercises and disciplines, and the ups as well as 
the downs of this life on earth. It was meant to be the 
Christianity triumphant, and signal of men of business and 
of men of fortune, as well as of poor men and of men in 
the lower walks of life, and there was a tribute to Chris- 
tianity that was paid when a man who was in business, 
and successful in business, was manifestly fervent in spirit 
serving the Lord. But for all that, the men who were 
really to gain the ear and heart of those who were outside 
for Christ, must be men who had begun to learn, and were 
going on more and more to learn, the unworldliness of 
Christ and of Christianity. There would not be success 
in this work if those belonging to the Church were to keep 
all their idols in their heart, if they were going to be mainly 
taken up about success in the world, about being rich, 
about social success and precedency, and about the enjoy- 
ment of all the recreations that were in the world. There 
was a right use of these, but still the spirit that was to 
succeed was the spirit that divorced itself in Christ’s name 
and for Christ’s sake from the idolatry of these things, the 
spirit of those who were learning in the school of Christ. 
“One thing I do; I am here in this world, no doubt, to be 
diligent in business among other things, but I am here a 
man to live a short life for a few years, and the main thing 
is, for myself, that I have the Kingdom of God within me 
—and there is nothing else to compare with that—and, for 
others, that I may bring men to the knowledge of Christ 
and set forward the kingdom of God in this world.” It 
was not enough that we should do what he was doing just 
now—speaking about it according to the best gift of speech 
he had; it was all right we should talk about it, but we 
should believe it, and see that it was really a moving life 
and power in ourselves, that we were ourselves under the 
influence of the gospel and becoming unworldly men and 


26 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


women, and that a larger place in our hearts was being 
got, and our hearts were becoming more sore and anxious 
about those poor men and women who were out in the 
dark and cold, against whom life was going hard, or who 
perhaps were not finding life going so hard against them 
but who, under the influence of a tolerable worldly pros- 
perity, were living for this world, and forgetting that there 
was or thinking that there was not any other world. It 
was in connection with our learning the mind of Christ, the 
great missionary, and of those apostles that followed Him 
—it was in our coming to the unworldliness of spirit, no 
doubt, that we should be qualified and prepared for any 
honourable success. That was not exactly easy in this 
age of the world. In the experience of the way in which 
this world was plying its mighty engines on us all; the 
noise it was making around us, the way in which it held 
up to us on every side the splendour of its manifold 
achievements and drew us, in every day’s news and news- 
papers in every day’s recreation, and in every day’s busi- 
ness excitement, to fall down at its feet and worship it, 
and to give ourselves up, hands and feet bound, to its 
influence and to its passions, it was not easy. 


IV. Popery. Sy Rev. E. HERBER EVANS. 


JOHN BRIGHT once said that there was one thing almost as 
strong as truth itself, and that was persecuted error. We 
have learned in Wales that the right way is not to persecute 
the error, but to preach the truth. The Roman Catholics 
carry on business in their own way. They are using their 
horns. Iam reminded by this of an old Welsh minister, who 
told us the other day that going through the Vale of Clwyd 
he met a farmer who had hundreds of sheep in the vale 
while others were grazing on the mountains. The minister 
asked the farmer, “What is the difference between the sheep 
which you keep down here in the vale and those on the 
mountains?” “Oh!” he said, “the sheep that graze down 
in the vale are those that give you the best meat ; but those 
that graze on the mountains always have the best horns.” 
Now, we feel that when men are too ready to use their 
horns, they live on poor grass. We in Wales have con- 


POPERY. 17 


quered Popery by preaching the Gospel, reading the Bible, 
and by means of our Sunday-schools. It is quite fair that 
if we in Wales find the men, you should find the means to 
send them forth. Are we to tell them that for want of 
funds we cannot send them forth? No; that would be 
a shame to us, and by so doing we would do wrong to the 
young men. We will do something to lift up those poor 
benighted people in Brittany, and free them from the yoke 
of the Roman Catholic priesthood, and make men of them. 
The rev. gentleman, as a proof of what even one man 
could do, related the wonderful success, of which he had 
been witness, of Mr. McAll’s labours in Paris; and he 
was glad to say that Mr. McAll had a splendid helper in 
his wife, who had as great an interest as her husband in 
the work. Inthe report he found the question, “Is a better 
religion to be found?” He contended that there was 
not a better religion to be found to teach contentment and 
sobriety, and to teach people to be quiet, because there 
was something to hope for better and further on. At the 
present day in every country in Europe the working people 
were being led more and more into scepticism, and one 
great thinker had said that he believed the scientific scep- 
ticism at the top of society, and the unbelief at the 
bottom of society, were the two things that were yet to 
crush Popery throughout Europe, and that infidelity was 
to crush superstition. He did not know whether that 
was true or not, but he hoped that the Society would 
Christianize and evangelize, and that every one would 
do his best by the influence he exerted in his own 
circle. The rev. gentleman continued: We are told that 
there is an animal in every man and an animal in every 
nation—the tiger in one, the lion in another, the panther 
in another ; and whenever the animal becomes the most in 
a rage, it is “a reign of terror.” Now this Society’s object 
is to bring out the spiritual in every man; and it is a gain 
to every nation and every people if we can only win one 
man and evangelize him, and get him to believe this Gospel, 
which makes happy homes and peaceful hearths, simply 
because we teach them something further on. A poor man 
in South Africa once met Dr. Moffat with a pitiful face. 
Dr. Moffat asked him what was the matter, and he replied, 
“My dog has swallowed three leaves of the New Testa- 
Cc 


18 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


ment.” “Why should you cry over that?” asked Dr. 
Moffat. The man replied, “It will spoil the dog; he was 
a capital hunter, and it will make him tame now, the same 
as it makes all the people tame round here. It will spoil 
him as a hunter.” There’s some philosophy in that. The 
man had seen the effect of the Gospel all round him—that 
it made the people quiet and contented, and he was afraid 
it would have the same effect on the dog. We have all 
seen the effect of the Gospel on people under sorrow and 
trial. I have seen it myself. I have preached occasion- 
ally in the workhouse in Carnarvon, half a mile from town: 
and friends in the neighbourhood came in to join in the 
service, and I have been delighted to see them singing 
out of the same hymn-book of the same Jesus and His love, 
singing about the same fountain that cleanses the one like 
the other, about the same home that will welcome the in- 
mate of the poor house as well as the inmate of the richest 
mansion outside. Look at the poor man whose face has 
been furrowed by the storms of life. I gave out a Welsh 
hymn, which conveyed the idea that he is a child of God, 
that he is not of age, but that his inheritance is coming. 
Look how it affects him! He realizes that there is to be 
for him—a poor, broken-down man, who has lost his wife 
and two children and his all—something further on. Will 
you blast his future by taking it from him? No; let him 
sing away, full of that better hope that enabled Paul to 
sing in the prison. Now, I want you to take this Book to 
Brittany—to France—everywhere—to brighten the homes 
of the poor, to show to those who are down, those that are 
degraded, even those that are lost, that there is to be for 
them something yonder. 


WV. Christian Giving. Sy Rev. Dr. PARKER. 


IT strikes me that we have in the Home Missionary Society 
the outline of a very much greater institution than the 
Society itself is at present. A great desire is expressed 
here and there, and very fervently and sincerely expressed, 
that the incomes of our ministers should be raised to a 
very reasonable minimum, and that a good deal inore 
should be done for the Christianization of England. We 


CHRISTIAN GIVING. 19 


all sympathize with these two objects. If there is any 
difference of opinion amongst us, it relates solely to the 
method of accomplishing them. Now, I cannot but feel 
that in the Home Missionary Society we have the begin- 
ning of something which contains the solution of any 
difficulties which may gather round these two questions. 
We have an income, we have a staff of workers, we have 
a field partially occupied, we have from fifty to sixty 
years’ or more experience of this very kind of work. A 
great deal has been done to animate county operations 
and sustain zealous and intelligent men in various pro- 
vincial positions, and I think we have only to increase this, 
to carry out this idea to its highest possibilities, in order 
to accomplish everything that is desirable or practicable 
in the way of making ministers comfortable, and greatly 
extending all evangelistic agencies. I would, therefore, as 
this appears to me to be a serious meeting, and not a mob 
of people gathered to hear about things that really have 
no practical consequence or value—I address you rather as 
a deliberative than a popular assembly—I would ask you 
to think of this much, whether there is not in this Society 
the framework and outline of a much greater institution 
than itself, which might be wrought up to all that is re- 
quired for the thorough accomplishment of the two objects 
which I have now indicated. Of course, you will say, as 
has been already said, that you have not income enough 
in this Society to overtake the great work. That may be 
our blame, not the blame of the Society. The Society, so 
far as I understand it, is perfectly ready to receive and 
administer any amount of income which we may supply. 
It would be, therefore, I think, beginning the question 
very pitifully for us to sit here and say this Society has: 
not income enough to accomplish the two objects you 
have specified. If we will supply the income, I am sure 
the administrative ability of the Society will be equal to all 
the exigencies of the situation. But if you have not the 
income, I will tell you how to get it. I sympathize with 
the appeal to a few people to give considerable sums of 
money, but that is not the way to get the income. That 
is one way of helping yourself out of a difficulty, stopping 
a gap, helping yourself across a very ugly ditch; but the 
way to get the income is for every soul to feel the principle 


20 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


— 


and the responsibility of individual stewardship to the one 
Lord and Sovereign of the Church. And unless each of 
you lay by him in store on the first day of the week, as 
God has prospered him, your giving will be spasmodic, 
and you will feel that you are always giving because you 
are not giving systematically and proportionately. No 
man who sets down his gifts and adds them up from time 
to time but will, I think, with rare exceptions, be found to 
surprise himself with the paucity and poverty of his dona- 
tions. Now the Christian Church ought never to meet, in 
my opinion, without the worship of giving accompanying 
the worship of getting. I am ashamed to see a thousand 
people gathered together to sing hymns, and offer prayers, 
and read chapters, and hear all the exceeding great and 
precious promises lavished upon their life, and then go 
away simply to pass an opinion about the service, or to 
give some passing criticism about the sermon -that was 
delivered. No sacrifice left behind, nothing stored on 
the altar for the poor and the stranger, the widow, and 
the fatherless, and the desolate; nothing left behind but 
criticism, observation, remark upon what has been done. 
Now if you believe in Dr. Chalmers’ principle of the power 
of littles, we have it within the scope of our ability now to 
surprise ourselves with the largeness and the munificence 
of our gifts. What, then, would I urge upon you? This: 
that every Sunday morning and every Sunday evening 
something should be done for the cause of Christ—that 
all-inclusive cause in which the poor man has a share, and 
the sick child, and the far-away villager and the toiling 
pastor—and all causes that come under the wide designa- 
tion of Christian charity. If you do that, your income will » 
be large enough to meet all the wants of this and every 
other Society. I want something from every hand, a little 
to accompany every act of worship, and I am confident 
that all our reports will assume a very different colour and 
a very different tone. I accompanied a minister to a little 
village on one occasion, and I was standing by whilst the 
leading man of the village was speaking to the minister, 
and the leading man handed him the amount of the former 
Sunday’s coliection on behalf of missions, and the amount 
of that collection was two shillings and sixpence, and it 
was given with the remark from this substantial farmer; 


CHRISTIAN GIVING. 21 


“You see, sir, it comes heavy upon a few of us.” And 
many people who enjoy that anecdote repeat the example. 
Now, sir, allow me to say that I stand here as one who 
personally and pastorally carries out the doctrine which I 
have now ventured to lay down. We never meet in our 
church without taking an offering for Christ, and the 
church is not empty. You will see in some places this 
Gospel announcement—but not in the gospel by Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, or John; some other gospel—“ No collection.” 
No sacrifice, no giving; all getting, sucking in all the 
promises, absorbing all the similes and the parables, de- 
lighted with the beautiful sermon about pearly gates, and 
meandering rills, and jasper battlements, and hills of light, 
and other things too numerous to mention—and that is 
‘called Gospel service and Gospel stewardship. No, no; 
until we come to this—every man giving his little, however 
little, and giving it regularly and in connection with an act 
of worship—this question of money-getting will vex the 
deliberations and put to perplexity the wisdom and the 
patience of any committee that may be constituted for 
Christian purposes. If you do your best for the people 
the people will respond to you; if you constantly live for 
them, in every prayer you offer and every sermon you 
deliver ; if you preach with every limb, with the whole 
man, body, soul, and spirit ; the people will know what you 
are doing on their behalf, and they are not—TI bear this 
testimony gladly and emphatically—slow to recognise any 
effort that you may put forth on their behalf. Depend 
upon it, that only as our men whom we send out know and 
love the truth and speak it with force and tenderness will 
they succeed in this business. I am glad that you praise 
any kind of ministry, that you indicate with favour any 
kind of men who are endeavouring to do good. Every 
word you have said I accept, and would repeat with aug- 
mented emphasis had I the power; but, at the same time, 
this work is not given to any one man to do or any one 
set of men todo. The great donor of all heavenly riches 
hath given some to be pastors, and teachers, and evan- 
gelists, and ‘servants of the Church in manifold and un- 
nameable ways, and I do protest against anybody sneering 
at or undervaluing any other agency in the Christian 
Church than that which he represents. I welcome all 


22 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


service, and believe in all kinds of preaching that are true 
to the Cross, and I say, “God bless you,” to every man 
who speaks a word for Christ out of the energy and 
conviction of his heart. I trust, therefore, that none of us 
will be depreciated or undervalued. We labour in different 
ways and methods, but our object is one. There is not a 
man in this ministry who would not be gladdened beyond 
all other joy by seeing men come in and confessing their 
sins and giving themselves to the Saviour. Had I the 
power, I therefore would speak to all men, of all kinds of 
ability, and in all spheres of service, and say, “All ye are 
brethren : do not undervalue one another’s labours, but be 


ye helpers of one another in the strength of your common 
Lord.” 


VI. The Value of Tract Distribution. By Rev. 
Newman HAtt, LL.B. 


HE said: One man might sow sand, another weeds, and 
another good wheat, but it was the value of the crop that 
gave value to the work. What, then, was the seed which 
the Tract Society sowed? The Bible was a book of 
tracts. What grand old tracts were those that Moses 
wrote. What sublime theology, what grand legisla- 
tion, what noble purity and freedom in an age of such 
degradation and slavery, were contained in those tracts! 
What wonderful tracts were those David wrote, and Isaiah, 
Jeremiah, and the rest of the prophets! And then, in New 
Testament times, what a little tract was the Gospel of St. 
Matthew; but oh! what a heaven in it! And what an 
effect the Epistles had! The tracts issued by the Tract 
Society were reflections of the greater light of those original 
tracts, for a little thing might reflect a great thing. A 
drop of dew, a bit of broken glass or pottery, was enough 
to reflect the glorious light of the sun; and small and 
insignificant as tracts might be, they served to reflect the 
glory of the Sun of Righteousness. God had big volumes 
in nature, but He also had a multitude of little leaflets. 
The gorse and the blue-bell mingling their delicious 
essences, the harmony of the architecture of the trees, 
though the styles were varied—the old gnarled oak and 


TRACT DISTRIBUTION. 23 


the beech, so graceful in its stateliness, the drooping willow 
and the pillared pine; the varieties of green, from the 
tender tint of the early-budding fir-tree to the sober 
raiment of the old yew-tree—all taught a lesson of unity 
in diversity—a lesson which the Christian Church had been 
so long in learning thoroughly, but which this Society 
emphatically taught. . The lambs frisking and sporting in 
the exuberance of mirth, the perch in mimic chase pur- 
suing each other, the innumerable swarms of insects 
dancing in the solar ray, the birds all so happy, the tender 
tones of the blackbird, the cuckoo’s shout of joy that 
summer was coming back, the lark soaring and singing as 
if its little heart would burst, the nightingale with its liquid 
trill of pensive gladness—all these told the world that the 
great Author’s name was love, and that He rejoiced to see 
all His creatures happy. And every tract in nature was a 
truth. There was atruth on every blade of grass, and 
every tree, and every stream—not all truth, but some truth, 
rightly studied, that might lead man up to God. So in all 
the publications of this Society there was some truth about 
the Lord Jesus Christ. Sometimes a man might hear a 
sermon and doubt whether it was delivered in a Grecian 
school of philosophy, a Jewish synagogue, a mechanics’ 
institute, or a Christian church, because it contained 
nothing about the central verity of the Christian faith ; but 
all the tracts issued by the Society tended to lead a man 
into the King’s highway of truth. Work for Christ was a 
necessary part of the religion of Christ. He could not 
understand the consistency of Christians whose Christianity 
consisted for the most part in going to church once or 
twice or three times a week, although once a week had 
now become too fashionable, expecting if they were ill or 
in trouble to be waited upon, visited, and comforted, but 
never comforting anybody themselves. They seemed to 
think that it was the business of the ministry to convert 
the world, instead of the business of the priesthood—the 
priesthood of all who believed in the Tord Jesus Christ. It 
was the priestly duty and privilege of all Christians to say, 
every one to his neighbour, “ Know ye the Lord.” No one 
could know what real religion was until his religion was 
developed and strengthened by some personal effort. 
They must not suppose that because they were saved by 


=4 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


a 


faith there was no such thing as a reward for good works. 
He that sowed plentifully would reap plentifully ; he that 
sowed sparingly would reap sparingly. Tract distribution 
was valuable, because it increased and varied the oppor- 
tunities of working for Christ. A mountain once said to a 
squirrel, “Oh, you little prig!” but the squirrel replied, 
“Oh! you may carry a big forest on your back, but you 
cannot crack a nut.” There were many persons who could 
write learned books or go forth as heralds of the Gospel in 
foreign lands, but it was still something to crack a nut by 
distributing a tract. Thanks be to God for an institution 
which put the means of usefulness in the hands of every 
one! When he was in Ireland recently, he was told that 
it was scarcely possible to get Roman Catholics into the 
churches to hear Scriptural doctrine, but that the hope was 
in the distribution of evangelical books. An opportunity 
was thus given to women to work for Christ. There were 
some noble-gifted women who were capable of addressing 
multitudes, and he, for one, would not say that the gift of 
God was to be neglected ; but there were others whose 
tastes and instincts caused them to shrink from such 
publicity. In such cases the distribution of tracts was 
suited to their modesty, gentleness, and retiring spirit, and 
often a tract would be accepted when given by a gentle 
woman, when it would be rejected if offered by a man. 
Little children, too, who could do nothing else, could give 
away atract. The results of tract distribution also showed 
how valuable the work was. When he was in Paris, at 
the Bible Stand, during the last Exhibition, a gentleman 
connected with the Spanish department addressed him by 
name, saying, “I was in a theatre at Madrid. A little 
tract had been given me; and between the acts, wanting 
to while away the time, I took it out and looked at it, and 
I was so impressed with what it said, that I rushed out of 
the theatre, and have never been inside one since.” He 
was now a native evangelist, engaged in spreading the 
Gospel. A man had lost his way in a wild moorland 
region; he was far from his comfortable hotel; he was 
perishing with the cold, but he saw some blue smoke, and 
found a little hut. It was not his comfortable home, but 
ae there gained instructions by which he could reach it. 
rle was amongst Alpine snows, and the perilous fog had 


SUCCESS AND SECONDARY AGENCIES. 25 


come on, and he had lost his way. There was a sudden 
uplifting of the mist, and he saw a granite peak yonder, 
which told him the direction he must take, and so he was 
saved from the precipice. A fisherman was out fishing, 
and the darkness of the night had come on; he knew not 
how to reach the little harbour ; but there was a lamp at 
the door of his cottage, and that little light was enough to 
guide him home. A little pebble might bring down a big 
Goliath ; a little maid might lead a rich and lordly leper 
to the prophet of Israel and the river of life; and a little 
tract might save a soul from death, and add to the many 
crowns of Christ. 


VII. Success and Secondary Agencies. Sy 
Rev. IR. PARKER. 


SUPPOSE that no man had achieved success, that every 
man’s hand fell by his side, that every man’s bow was un- 
strung, that no man could say, “The Word of the Lord 
has been powerful in my mouth,” how then? Should we 
resolve upon giving up the work and retiring from it in 
dismay and despair? Far from it; it does not depend 
upon our reports, we do not derive our inspiration from 
our successes. Our marching orders are, “Go ye into 
- all the world and preach.” As for the harvest time, I leave 
it with Him to whom Paul looked and to whom Apollos 
looked when they planted and sowed. We have not to do 
with results, but with processes; we have to do our duty, 
and to leave results entirely in the hand of God. We have 
heard the word success from more speakers than one to- 
night. Now, there are very few words which are so little 
understood as the word success. It is a word which I do 
not care very much for. No man knows the measure of it 
in relation to spiritual energy and ministry. The older I 
get, the more strenuously I believe that we have nothing to 
do with success. If it comes, well and good, thank God 
for it; but our place is to work, to toil, to suffer with 
heroic patience, with joyful and expectant endurance, leav- 
ing all the outcome to Him to whom the kingdom is infi- 
nitely dearer than it ever can be to us. I hear men say 
that their Churches are not in a very prosperous condition. 


26 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


I am afraid that the complaint is often made in a com- 
mercial tone. I would to God I could drive the mere shop 
out of the Church of Christ. Men come to me and you, 
brother ministers, with a kind of balance-sheet, take the 
very soul out of you, souring the very blood in your veins 
by telling you you have not done so well this year as you 
did last year. Who are they that they should draw a 
balance-sheet, and then, with profound impertinence, tell 
us what we have done? We are not their servants, but 
Christ’s, and we shall know what we have done to the 
uttermost farthing, and the furthermost limits, when we 
stand face to face with Him into whose hands I would 
rather fall than into the hands of any human judge. A 
man says we have only added one member to the Church 
this year. I say, “ What is the man’s name?” “TI do not 
know his name.” “Describe the man.” “ Well, he has 
got rather a high forehead, a nice dark, gleaming eye, raven 
locks, spare in his frame, wiry in his constitution; but I do 
not recollect his name.” “Find it out.” Then he goes, 
and he found that it was Robert Moffat that was added. 
I want to tell you that you may add one man, and yet 
add a whole world when you write his name upon your 
book. When you added John Wesley to the Church, you 
added generation upon generation. Who are these men 
—these statisticians—that come and tell us we have only 
added one to the Church? Ah, sir, when you were added, 
perhaps there was only one. I repeat that if the reports 
had been exactly the contrary of what they are—dark and 
gloomy, marked with failure from the beginning through 
the whole course—still we should have had to double 
our subscriptions and renew our prayers, and utter our 
oath of dedication at the cross afresh, for the mouth of the 
Lord hath bidden us go, and we are not determined in the 
measure of our labour and the fervour of our energy by mere 
numerable successes, by figures that can be tabulated and 
reported in Exeter Hall. Now, as the reports were pro- 
ceeding I have been holding another missionary meeting. 

I have been in some far-off parts of the earth; I have been 
addressing a meeting at Sierra Leone, and reading a report 
tc the people there about English Christians—what they 
say about one another, how they look, how they eat and 
drink, the fashion that they patronize, the literature that 


SUCCESS AND SECONDARY AGENCIES. 297 


they are most fond of, and I have made you out to be a 
very pretty people. Oh, sirs, you should hear yourselves 
reported on at the other end of the earth. I am confident 
that a good many of us hadztués of Exeter Hall would be 
quite amazed if we heard ourselves described even by the 
friendless tongues. When we can read corrupt literature ; 
when we can while away hours in idleness, in all but blas- 
phemous indolence; when we can backbite and slander 
one another ; when we can shrug the shoulder and look 
askance, and drop the word of poison into conversation re- 
specting one another’s standing and reputation in society ; 
we are hardly the people to ask whether the blacks can 
rule, and whether, if we had so-and-so in a distant colony, 
such and such will not be the consequences. When we 
have washed our own hands, and shown what we can do, 
it will be time enough to look with suspicion upon nations 
that are far away. Now, this resolution does not under- 
value secondary agencies ; but it holds out, as I understand, 
the doctrine that the truth as it is in Jesus alone can truly 
save and elevate mankind. We have nothing to say to 
secondary agencies ; but I have to suggest to you whether 
those secondary agencies have not proved themselves to 
be lamentable failures as addressed to great primary effects 
and consequences. Within their own sphere, they are 
everything we can desire; but, believe me, the world is 
not going to be saved by better sewerage, by deeper drain- 
ing, by whitewashing the walls of artisans’ dwellings more 
profusely, by Saturday half-holidays, by bank holidays, 
and by “nine hours at the seaside for 3s.” All that kind 
of thing is right enough in its place; but it never touches 
the grave, it never blows the trumpet of resurrection over 
dead souls. You must look at these things in their own 
place and in their own relationship, and value them highly, 
and promote them all you can; but the truth as it is in 
Jesus alone can touch the heart and renew the soul. Oh, 
sir, we talk about an academy which is presently to be 
opened, I have been at an academy to-night. Did you 
observe one word that the venerable apostle used ? it was 
the word “dawn.” He was speaking to a set of men about 
the resurrection and the life of the world to come, and 
what was it he saw on the countenances of those listening 
men? It was the dawn. I would to God I could see the 


28 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


dawn myself. To be a man sent of God to speak such 
truth as brings a dawn into the human face! When he 
saw that dawn, he saw the heavens opened; he saw the 
angel that is in every man, the God that throbs in every 
heart ; he saw the morning of immortality! I have often 
envied our missionary brethren when they have been telling 
aman the truth as it is in Jesus, depicting the cross, ap- 
pealing to his heart, to his best nature—I have often envied 
him his view of the first calm, steady look. In the Bible 
we often read such words as these—“ His eyes were 
opened.” This was the case with our friend. He saw the 
eyes of the man opened, beholding chariots of fire, angels, 
and great hosts of ministering ones. If we could have 
seen such a dawn on any human countenance as that, and 
then have heard the argument that missionaries have been 
a failure, we should have found the best answer in that 
luminous, that indescribable spectacle. When I was in 
New York some time ago, a man with turbaned head rose 
at a missionary meeting, and said, in a soft, musical voice, 
“You have heard that missionary enterprise has been a 
failure; I am here to give the lie to that statement.” He 
himself was the answer; and I felt, as I looked upon that 
intelligent, Christianized Brahmin, who twenty-five years 
ago would not have spoken to the proudest monarch in 
Europe, standing there as a little child in the kingdom of 
heaven, that if he alone represented the sum total of the 
effects produced by missionary enterpriSe, every prayer 
had been answered, and every penny had been well spent. 
You have entrusted me with a solemn resolution. You 
say, “This meeting earnestly prays.” Sir, is it possible ? 
_“ This meeting earnestly prays””—all these young people in 
the gallery, all these elderly people, these men of business, 
and women who have families to guide and direct, is it 
possible that this assembly “earnestly prays”? Why, 
consider the import of the words; what is there to hinder 
us from taking heaven by storm then? “This meeting 
earnestly prays!” Consider what you are about to vote. 
An uplifted hand is a prayer. This is no technical resolu- 
tion or formal vow. It is solemn as an oath, it isan appeal 
to heaven. Beware how you vote it. It pledges you to 
your knees, to earnest crying and tears before God, and 
mighty wrestling with the Omnipotent One. If we did 


——— 


SUCCESS AND SECONDARY AGENCIES. 2g 


earnestly pray, the place wherein we are assembled would 
be shaken, and Pentecostal winds and fires would attest in 
our hearts and lives the presence of an ever-living God. 
Now, let me tell you—and if I get the better of my cold, 
and am able to fulfil my engagements, this would be 
_ my speech all the month through—where you fail, where 

I fail, where all Churches fail, is in this matter :—You 
hear the sermon, you “ Hold the fort,” you “Ring the 
bells of heaven,” you go away, saying, “ Beautiful sermon, 
nice sermon; I enjoyed it so much,” but you leave no 
sacrifice behind you. What, a thousand people coming 
to sing hymns, and offer prayers, and hear psalms, 
and make no collection! It is profanity; it is the vilest 
anti-climax ; it is the cruellest irony. Why, every time we 
meet we should give an offering to Christ. Knock at the 
door openly, lovingly, with both hands, mayhap, now and 
again ; always do this, and prove Him if He will not open 
the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing that there 
shall not be room to receive it. The great secret of all 
your successes in a mechanical and financial point of view 
must come out of a deeper spiritual life, and this deeper 
spiritual life will make you give every time you meet. We 
have begun that in my place. I sometimes see it an- 
nounced on the city walls (tell it not in Sierra Leone), 
“Mr. So-and-So will preach at such a place—no collection.” 
Oh, that we should have lived to see the day of “no collec- 
tion,’—all getting, no giving; anecdotes, stories, tears, 
singing psalms, ‘‘holding forts,” “ringing the bells,” and no 
collection. Oh, sir, the Church has got wrong there. I 
used to preach in this hall; I preached here for eighteen 
months, and people used to say to me, “If you did not 
collect as you do, you would have Exeter Hall filled down 
the stairs, and into the Strand.” Well, sir, when we came 
to pay £800 for the use of the building, where would the 
people have been then? In the Strand? Now, that is 
rather an awkward place for making a collection. But, 
apart from that, I want the chairman, as a man of busi- 
ness—I want all my ministerial friends, on the right 
hand and on the left—to make some use of these May 
meetings in their pulpit services, showing that there is 
a worship of giving as well as a worship of getting; and 
so long as the collection is always sneered at or referred 


20 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


to with laughter, even friendly laughter, so long as it is not 
regarded as a serious sacrifice, a distinctly religious act, we 
shall find our resources crippled and our deliberations 
vexed with earthly considerations. “What will you give, 
sir? What will you give to this object? I have called 
upon yot, though I think you are too poor to give anything 
to it; but what will you give?” “Well, what are other 
people giving?” “So and so.” Now, that is a true state- 
ment. Said a poor lJaundress to a clergyman to whom 
she was speaking, “ Well, I cannot do as the great folks do. 
I cannot give you a guinea a year, but I will give you 6d. 
a week.” Unless we get the weekly offerings, regular, 
systematic giving, all these resolutions will be so much 
waste paper. I ask you to look at this; I say it more 
emphatically because I venture to say that I am a minister 
of a congregation which has done this, and is doing it, and 
the church is not empty, and Christ does not forget to 
send those to hear who are prepared to support His cause. 
“This meeting earnestly prays.’ Now, does it? Stand 
up, if you please, all of you, and I will pray with you, and 
we will earnestly pray now. “Almighty God, Thou who 
didst send Thy Son to die for us, baptize us as with the 
Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. We have the bap- 
tism of water; give us the baptism of fire. Drive out of 
our hearts all selfishness, and all evil, and all idolatry ; give 
us the spirit of sacrifice, and trust, and love, and loyalty, 
and may we give ourselves a living sacrifice to Thee, 
Thou Son of God.” 


VIII. Sunday Schools. Sy Rev. A. Mursett. 


My subject refers to means and appliances for aiding 
Sunday-school teachers to qualify for their great work, 
and to plans for testing their efficiency for its discharge. I 
rejoice most heartily in these ways and means, not only as 
indicating a stronger interest on the part of the Christian 
Church, in the work undertaken by the teacher ; but chiefly 
as a sign of an increased importance being attached to that 
work by teachers themselves, and an enhanced sense of 
its responsibility and privilege. Demand should precede 
supply, and I take it that there has been a demand for these 


SUNDAY SCHOOLS. 31 


agencies on the part of Sunday-school teachers, who are 
beginning to discover that their work is a work, and not 
a pastime; and that it consists in the systematic training ot 
the nascent minds which are to influence the Church and 
the world when we are gone, and not in simply keeping a 
handful of children out of mischief for two hours every 
Sunday. They feel that it demands the effort and concen. 
tration of their best powers—not the perfunctory dedica- 
tion of a few scraps of their leisure time ; and hence the 
demand for such helps as these agencies indicate, a demand 
which has been nobly and simply met by the zeal and 
devotion of the Sunday-school Union. But the resolu- 
tion speaks of fruits as well as means. I confess, sir, I 
have always felt myself unable to enter into the enthusiasm 
with which some people can become inspired at an agricul- 
tural show. They will walk up and down amongst rows 
and vistas of ploughs and harrows, and lawn-mowers, and 
turnip-cutters, and hay forks, and thrashing machines, and 
clod-crushers, and get as excited and inspired as if they 
were threading their way amongst the lamps of heaven, or 
walking amidst the golden candlesticks. But although these 
are no doubt very useful things in their way, the stiff and 
greasy cranks and wheels have no language to speak to 
one’s imagination; one is willing to pay a passing tribute 
to the ingenuity of the inventor, but one grows impatient 
at the long explanations of how the thing works—how 
a strap goes over there, and a cog fits in there, and a knife 
sticks out there, and a pair of shears make their appear- 
ance there, and how the whole business is done in a tithe 
of the time of the old system. You hurry on to see the 
fruits—the laden sheaves, the pouting grapes, the bursting 
presses, the rich russet of the fecund field, the greenery of 
the smiling garden, or the purple and vermilion of the 
liberal orchard. And so one hurries over the clauses of 
this resolution which speak about the zplements, to dwell 
with grateful pleasure on that part which points to the rich 
fruits. This may seem very ungrateful to the machinery ; 
but one can’t go into ecstasies over a tool-chest. Hammers 
and nails, and screws and saws, are capital things in their 
way ; but flowers and leaves and berries are far mvre 
delightful ; and the mind prefers the Garden of Eden to 
Birmingham or Sheffield. Therefore it is that my note of 


32 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


rejoicing is reserved for that statement of my resolution 
which speaks of 18,000 Sunday scholars added to Christ's 
confessing Church during the year. The fragrance of 18,000 
fresh young flowers let loose upon the garden; the juices of 
18,000 clusters added to the wine-press, to exhilarate the 
Church below, and stimulate the hosanna of the Church 
above The incense of 18,000 new-tuned prayers rising from 
the altar ; 18,000 fresh photographs of the Crucified printed 
on the hearts of children ; 18,000 morning songs greeting 
the spring-tide, and carolling to the flowers of May. Thank 
God for that. Take courage while you can point to such 
trophies of your work. It is in this, sir, that I rejoice with 
joy unspeakable. And after all, it is not so shabby and 
ungrateful towards the machinery as it seems at first. 
Machines are very good things ; but they are useless with- 
out the steam to turn them. And systems, and examinations, 
and inspectorships, are first-rate arrangements, but they are 
no use without loving hearts to fill the means with life. 
The tonic sol-fa modulator may be a capital contrivance, 
but it is a hideous-looking concern with its doh ra me, and 
if it were not for the hymns and hallelujahs for which it 
helps the channel, we should pack it off to Mr. Curwen’s 
address by book-post, and wait till the angels gave us our 
first singing lesson, with a sunbeam for the baton, and 
heaven for the orchestra. It is a refreshing thing for those 
of us whose faith and trust gets often warped and troubled 
by all sorts of questionings and doubts, born out of the 
problems of the day, and the puzzles of our lives, to think 
of what an aggregate of simple and pure love for Christ 
is represented by those 18,000 fresh won hearts. It is 
delightful to dwell upon its freshness, and the fulness of 
its simple faith. It is like coming from a hot and dusty 
turnpike, where the hawthorn on the hedges is begrimed 


with the vapour of the traffic, into a stream-watered dell, - 


where the blue-bells and anemones catch the dew-drop and 
_ smile amongst the moss and bracken. For childhood’s 
faith and love is very strong and fresh in its simplicity. I 
heard of a minister who went to preach somewhere in the 
north, and he was directed to tell the driver when he got to 
the station to drive him to “ Ebenezer” Chapel. He acted 
upon these instructions, when the driver—who was not like 
a London “cabby,” only to be guided by the names of 


——- 


SUNDAY SCHOCLS. 33 


public-houses—but who was a quiet, civil old fellow, whose 
kindness to his horse marked him as a good sort—turned 
to his “fare,” and said : “Ebenezer? oh, you mean little 
Charley’s chapel, don’t you?” “Little Charley’s Chapel! 
no; I mean Ebenezer.” “Yes; we old folks know it as 
Little Charley’s Chapel,” he said. “Why do you call it 
Little Charley’s Chapel? Was it because the honourable 
member for Salford laid the foundation stone?” “No; 
but Little Charley laid the foundation stone. The fact 
is, sir, a few years ago we wanted a new chapel, and 
we thought a good deal about how the money must 
be raised; but times were very bad, and the people 
were very poor, and labour and materials were very dear, 
so we resolved to give it up. But a day or two after 
the meeting a little boy about nine years old came to the 
minister's door and rang the bell. The minister came out 
himself, and found the little fellow with his face all flushed, 
and the perspiration standing on his forehead, and his little 
toy wheelbarrow, in which there were six new bricks. He 
had wheeled his load up a long steep hill, and was so out 
of breath that he could hardly speak. At last he found 
breath to answer the minister’s wondering question, ‘ Well, 
Charley, what is it?’ ‘ Oh, please, sir,’ said Charley, ‘I heard 
you wanted a new chapel, and were thinking of giving it 
up ; so I begged these few bricks from some builders who 
are building a house down the village, and I thought they 
would do to begin with. The minister called the com- 
mittee together again, and Charley’s little barrowful of 
bricks was brought before them. The child’s enthusiasm 
was contagious, and the desponding committee plucked up 
heart ; and little Charley laid the first stone of the big 
chapel, which will hold 1,000 people, and cost £6,000; and 
now it is out of debt.” “And what has become of little 
Charley?” The old man’s voice grew husky. “If you'll 
let me pull up at the churchyard, sir, I'll show you 
Charley’s grave. There’s a many graves there, but you 
may always tell Charley’s by the bright, fresh flowers. He 
was the pet of the Sunday-school, and the children never 
let a day go by without putting fresh flowers on his grave. 
He used to live close by the school, and he died the very 
day the last pound of the chapel debt was paid. It was a 
summer's day, and he made them set his window orfen that 
P 


34 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


he might hear the children sing. He would have them 
sing a happy tune, and he died trying to join them in it 
from his little bed ; but though he could hardly begin the 
hymn on earth, we all believe he finished it in heaven.” 
Amongst the 18,000 trophies of your work, or of God’s 
blessing on it, there is at least the force of a like precious 
faith—new hope, new courage, new consecration. Sir, it 
would enhance greatly the privilege of being permitted to 
take part in this most May-like of all the May Meetings, if 
one could but speak a word which should prove of living 
and lasting encouragement to those bands of Sunday- 
school teachers who congregate before me—a word which 
should endear their work to them more fully, impart to 
them a new sense of its importance, and inspire them with 
fresh heart in its discharge. I would fain aim at the utter- 
ance of such a word by reminding you of the reflex influ- 
ence of your work, how it acts upon the child and reacts 
upon yourself. There is no human mission or occupation 
which carries with it more strong or striking proofs that it 
is more blessed to give than to receive than Sunday-school 
teaching. An earnest teacher learns more from his class 
than he can ever impart to it. Not only do their inquiries, 
when their minds are interested, prompt the teacher to a 
study which is useful to himself, but their wistfulness and 
wonder as the love-depths of the plan of human redemp- 
tion open before them, begets a new interest in your own 
heart, and reveal to you new charms in that Saviour of 
whom you speak, as you take of the things of Christ and 
show them to the child. You soon find out that the Bible 
is a heart-book, and that to stop short at a critical study of 
its canon will not quench the thirst which is panting for its 
spirit. It is well enough for certain mechanical patentees 
of asystem of “culture” to dissect the Bible as a botanist 
dissects a flower or a surgeon dissects a body, but there are 
better and truer apostles of “sweetness and light” to be 
found amongst the children to whom it is your mission to 
tell the story of a Saviour’s love, than in the studies of 
savants or the cloisters of pedants. To these latter a 
promise may be but a curious example of Hebrew and 
Greek construction ; but to that child who has just begun 
to catch the outline of the Cross, and on whose eye the 
sheen of the halo of its wondrous love begins to shine, that 


SUNDAY SCHOOLS, 35 


promise is a living flower, to be garnered like the violets of 
spring. When they read the Bible they do not keep a pair 
of scissors handy to snip out this passage, or an almanack 
to challenge this date, but they read the vivid histories, 
and see their heroes, and hear their voices, and believe 
in them. They revel in its sceneries, climbing its crests 
and setting sail upon its seas. Carmel and Lebanon 
are not marks upon a map, but lungs which send breezes 
through their flaxen hair, and coignes of vantage whence 
they see the panorama and the landscape. The Psalms 
are not the key-note for a critic snarl of doubt, but harp- 
notes to which their own hearts keep tune. So you must 
fling the light of nature on the page, till nature and 
revelation blend in one rich shining. It is not your work 
to do as many would-be learned preachers do, who air their 
smattering of Greek instead of breathing the expirations 
of grace, teasing and bothering people about the tenses of 
a verb, or the force of an adjective; but you will show 
them living things. Now you will take them through 
the mountain gorge, and let them see it leap among the 
boulders, flinging the golden text up in a hundred rain- 
bows, as it plays through the fancy’s light. Now you will 
carry them off to some Indian jungle, pig-sticking with the 
future Emperor of India—and now they shall hear the 
beagles baying in the bracken fern as they hunt the stag 
in the Highlands or the chamois on the Alps. Parchment- 
headed and parchment-hearted martinets, who call them- 
selves philosophers, may call this shallow picture-painting. 
Withered spinsters who take the chair at meetings for the 
rights of women, and childless blue-stockings who wrangle 
at parochial vestries, may call this uninstructive, but you 
need not be ashamed of it. While we remember who it 
was who held up a bunch of lilies in His sacred hand and 
preached from them ; and pointed to the russet cornfields 
and the reddening sunset; who drew his picture on the 
easel of the shining East, and mixed his colours on the 
palette of the sky; we may at least be as tolerant of 
a teaching which keeps folks awake with poetry, as of that 
which sends them to sleep with prose. Did your child 
never come and ask you to tell it a tale? And when you 
give it a choice, it will choose the one which it has heard 
the oftenest, and with which it is most familiar. It can 


36 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


correct you if you leave out a word. And yet the tale 
lacks no interest by repetition. So you need not be afraid 
of exhausting the story of the Cross. The demand, when 
it is once understood, will be— 


* Tell me the old, old story, 
Of Jesus and His love.” 


I have sometimes noticed a child trying to amuse itself 
poring over a picture-book ; but the interest is soon gone. 
At length it takes courage to put the book upon its 
mother’s knee, and say, “ Will you show me the pictures ?” 
and the dry book draws a new interest from the sacred 
table where it has been set. When the table-cloth is the 
pattern of a mother’s dress, all that is placed on it becomes 
enchanted ; a new eloquence clothes the book when a kind 
finger is the index which points to it. There is David with 
the giant’s head. While the child looked at it alone, it was 
an old legend, shorn of its interest and deadened of its 
charm ; but now the finger points at it, the drops of blood 
seem to trickle from its severed neck, and the triumph- 
flash gleams in the young chieftain’s eyes, and the drama 
starts into a living thing. The spears of Philistia seem 
real, and the burnished swords begin to gleam, and the 
picture leaps into a moving act of life under the spell of 
that pointing hand. Let a dull and unobservant mind be 
wandering through Alpine glories, absorbed perhaps with 
other and meaner thoughts than the beauties around him 
should suggest; all that he derives from the scene is a 
general impression of magnificence or vastness, and nothing 
more. But if a quick-eyed poet is his companion, with 
his warm imagination, he will point out a hundred subtle 
lights and shades he would not otherwise have caught, and 
the panorama will be richer in all time to come in his 
memory and thought. The flushing rose-light warming 
the cold snow-wreath, like a blush upon a maiden’s cheek, 
the silver minaret pointing at the sky as though some 
giant mountaineer had drawn his sword to bathe and 
burnish it in heaven ; the flying cloud spreading its wings 
over the white glacier, and creeping down the cliff like the 
shadow of a weird procession ; the myriad flora venturing 
to spread their carpet and weave their broidered altar-cloth 
at the very threshold of the snow-temple ; these, and a 


— ee — 


SUNDAY SCHOOLS. 37 


os ome: 


volume of such things, would be passed hy in the dull 
thought of the mere professional travellsr who goes to 
“do” a district ; it needs a man who takes his soul as well 
as his knapsack with him, to see the glories, and with 
such an one to show the pictures, they live, and breathe, 
and speak. The same thing has a different power and influ- 
ence according to conditions. Let me walk alone by the 
sad sea waves, or through the interlacing avenue, and it has 
but small charm for me, and its whispers lack coherence ; 
but let two beating hearts keep time to the footsteps which 
press these walks, and the voice of whispering leaf and 
murmuring sea is rich and eloquent. Let me pluck the 
blue-bell from beside the stream, and I am ready to fling 
it back upon the rippling tide with the next capricious 
movement of my hand; but let one pair of taper fingers 
gather the same nosegay and fix it in my button-hole, and 
every flower is a stanza, and every bunch an epic hymn, 
The man who gathers flowers alone, packs them up in 
a tin box, classifies them and lectures about them; the 
ferns grow grim as a schoolmaster’s rod as they are bran- 
dished in the scientific hand ; it is not bracken, or maiden- 
hair, or heart’s-tongue, but something which almost loosens 
your front teeth to pronounce. But those who pluclr 
flowers with their hearts see in them far more thar 
botany discovers, and the blue star of the forget-me 
not, and the tough fibre of the ivy speak more heart. 
language at a glance. than the most long-winded lecture: 
could get through ina day. A bunch of lilies shaking ir 
a coy and trembling hand is like a chime of prophetic joy- 
bells, and the scents of orange groves breathe to the long- 
ing heart the thought of wreaths and unions. And so 
when the proud human mind bends over the garden of the 
Divine promises, it only botanizes among them; it criticises 
the precepts, and seems to imply how much better it could 
have made and grouped those flowers. Men won’t study 
God’s truth as lovers, but as lecturers; they seek for the 
botany of the Bible, but not its poetry; they dry its 
growth between the leaves of books, instead of planting 
them near their own hearts. If you want a violet to grow, 
you must take up its root, not cut off the flower; and so if 
you want a promise to endure, you must take it with the 
fibres of a father’s heart adhering to it, a living, throbbing 


38 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


thing. “Show me Thy ways ;” let the lover’s hand gather 
and present the flower, and then the scent is sweet, and the 
colour radiant; let the poet’s finger point the landscape, 
and then the lights and shades are harmonious, and the 
glory is complete. Let the Master hand attune the harp- 
strings, and the music will not jar. The reason why we 
hear so many scientific and critical objections to the Bible 
is that it is a book for the heart, while men only study it 
with the head. It would be as absurd to try and sing 
a proposition of Euclid, or set the multiplication table to 
music, as to make the Bible exclusively a school-book for 
the brain, instead of a hymn-book for the heart. It is be- 
cause men sit down to the Bible as the botanist sits down 
to the flower—to tear it up, not to admire its beauty, or 
inhale its scent—that the learned or unlearned sceptic 
sneers away its inspiration, the carper cavils at its authen- 
ticity, and the fool snarls out of his shallow heart, “There is 
no God.” Teachers may grow old and hoary ; but you will 
never grow old enough to regret your interest in the little 
children. It is said that when the sainted Dr. Guthrie lay 
upon his death-bed, he asked that a little child might come 
to him and sing. He said, “ My bonnie lamb, let me hear 
one of the bairns’ hymns.” A child’s clear voice was the 
bell upon the horses which bore his chariot to heaven. 
The old man’s heart yearned after his child companions. 
He wanted the bairns’ hymns. Those bairns had once sung 
lewd and ribald songs, but he had dropped a new song into 
their lips, and honeyed them to hosannas, and he wanted 
to hear the new song in the young voices. It was a 
pleasant sound to fall asleep to, and to rise to. It was 
earth’s evensong, and heaven’s bright matin shout in one, 
The bairns’ hymns, the hymns of childhood! Ah, ped- 
ants may despise them, but angels love them. They 
may have no music in the halls of theology or of learned 
infidelity, but they fill heaven until seraphim grow ecstatic 
at the sound. The bairns’ hymns! Thanks, gentle spirit, 
for the gentle thought. Oh, when I die, let the doctrinaires 
be mute, let the specialists be silent, and keep their fingers 
from the curtain, and their shadows from the light; but 
let the bairns sing to me. Let them sing of love, and 
hope, and beauty—sing as the birds sing in the garden, 
sing as the angels sing around the throne, sing like the 


THE CONVERSION OF CHILDREN. 39 
herald of the dewdrop and the carol of the dawn, sing like © 
the morning stars that sing together, and the sons of God 
that shout for joy. 


IX. The Conversion of Children. By Rev. W. 
Brock. 


WHAT is the object that gives so much interest and im- 
portance to our meeting? It is that God would take our 
children and incline them to consecrate themselves to a 
life of faith upon the Son of God, that He would deliver 
them from the power of darkness and translate them into 
the kingdom of His dear Son; and this, my dear friends, 
supposes that our children are not naturally what they 
ought to be, that they are not the sons and daughters of 
the Lord Almighty by natural birth. We should put this 
before our minds, and keep it there—not overlooking the 
excellencies which no father or mother can fail to admire; 
not overlooking the charming and attractive, which I think 
it would be a parental sin not to admire. No; as we look 
upon the noble, and the graceful, and the frank, and the 
simple, and the ingenuous, at the various stages of our chil- 
dren’s lives, I think it would be a great sin not to be thankful 
to God for that with which our hearts are so delighted ; but, 
at the same time, we must recollect that each one of those 
children needs the renovating power of the Holy Ghost; and 
whilst our neighbours may speak of their virtuous parentage, 
and of their godly education, yet we must ever bear in mind 
that they must be born not of the flesh, nor of the will of 
man, but of God. It was not to profligate and licentious 
Gentiles, but to those who had the highest parentage and 
education in the world at the time—it was to Nicodemus 
and his countrymen—that our great Lord and Master said, 
“Ye must be born again.” So it is that we are here to- 
day, knowing, let us hope, what it is to be ourselves the 
children of God, fain to lay hold of Omnipotence and 
bring down the same blessing upon our children, and being 
determined to give God no rest till we have rejoiced over 
their second birth even more exultingly than we did over 
their first. We remember, besides, that there are great 
obstacles and difficulties in the way of this new nature, and 


40 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


that sometimes they are apparently insuperable. The very 
privileges of our children may operate to their prejudice, 
and they may hear it said that we ought to go and preach 
for the conversion of the savages of Africa, but not for the 
conversion of children born, and bred, and educated as they 
have been. There are books which teach them that, and 
there are preachings which teach them that, if so be they 
should be so unhappy as to hear them. There is a ten- 
dency in the mercies themselves to suppress the proper 
anxiety which they ought to feel; and, when once this 
mistake is made, how many influences there are to confirm 
it! The present is always more effectual than the future ; 
things seen over-ride and shut out the proper force of things 
which are unseen, and our children must strive, and contend, 
and wrestle, if so be they break away from that which is 
natural, so as to lay hold upon and practise that which is 
spiritual. The very amenities of life,—and our children 
must not be shut out from them in sour and repulsive tones, 
or by stern and iron resolutions—become another decoy to 
irreligiousness, and all whereby they are surrounded, even 
the things in which they may properly engage, tend, unless 
there be some counteracting power, to lead them captives 
at the world’s will. Therefore it is that we are here to-day, 
and it is only God who can give us the blessing we need. 
We are here to acknowledge our dependence upon Him for 
that choicest of all favours in which a father or a mother 
can rejoice—to kneel down with your son, and hear him 
pray, or to know what a messenger of mercy your daughter 
is to the dying and to those who are dead in trespasses and 
sins. I take it that this is the highest gratification which 
even the regenerate heart can feel, and that it is hardly 
second to heaven itself, but it may be hoped for despite all 
difficulties, for “It is not by might nor by power, but by 
My Spirit, saith the Lord;” and if we honour Him as we 
are honouring Him to-day, we shall assuredly find that he 
that honoureth the Spirit, the Spirit will also honour. If 
He were capricious, as some people preach, it would be a 
different thing; but Heisrighteous. If He were inexorable, 
it would be a different thing ; but He is compassionate. If 
He had no sympathy with parental solicitude, it would be 
a different thing; but He is instinct with sympathy with 
parental solicitude. If we were not sure of His presence, it 


eas 


— 


THE CONVERSION OF CHILDREN. 4X 


would be a different thing ; but we are here honouring His 
promise, and He bids us not be afraid, but only to believe, 
because, although there may be difficulties in our unregen- 
erate nature, and though we meet with so much to dis- 
hearten us, yet greater is He that is for us than all those 
who are against us. Our coming here is to acknowledge 
our dependence upon Him, to importune Him to grant us 
the blessing, and then to abide in the full assurance of hope 
that the blessing will be vouchsafed, for we are praying not 
in the spirit of bondage again to fear, but with the spirit of 
adoption, whereby we cry, “Abba, Father,” not dreading 
that we shall fail, but being assured that we shall succeed. 
How pleasant and how Scriptural it was to offer thanks- 
givings, as we did just now, for answers to prayer already 
received, for we are told in everything by prayer and sup- 
plication, with thanksgiving, to make known our requests 
unto God. We are often so extremely importunate for a 
blessing, and almost as extremely careless when the bless- 
ing has come. We have thanked this morning as well as 
prayed ; and let me say for the comfort of any friends here 
who may be broken-hearted or dispirited, that in all my 
ministerial life it has been a constant source of delight to 
me to see how parental prayer has been answered. I have 
known family after family where, without exception, the 
whole have been brought to God, and are now walking in 
all His commandments blameless. I have known instances 
where there has been a long deferment of the hope, but 
where God has made good His word after all, sometimes 
even when the father and the mother have been among the 
sainted ones in glory. I remember a group of nine of us 
gathering, in my early life, at a prayer-meeting ; seven of 
us on comparing notes had to attribute our conversion to 
our mothers’ influence and prayers, and five out of the seven 
were fatherless boys, of whom I was one. I say to widowed 
mothers in this meeting to-day, Be of good comfort, my 
dear friends ; there is a special blessing to the fatherless 
and the widow, and that blessing has never been mani- 
fested more signally than in the answer to maternal, 
widowed prayer for the conversion of beloved sons. I know 
aman now living in a green old age in Yorkshire, who, as 
a boy, was brought up in the fear of God, but seemed to 
be utterly unaffected by it. He was the only son of his 


q2 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


mother, and she was a widow. At last he determined to 
run away from his mother; and nobody could tell how it 
was, except that God’s hand was in it, but when he made 
up his bundle of clothes to take with him, he must needs 
put into it one of those square, old-fashioned Bibles which 
we used to have as presents in our childhood. He hid 
himself away in a ship at Bristol, and did not show himself 
to the captain till they were out into the Channel, and it 
was too late to send him ashore. He went to the Mediter- 
ranean. It was at the time of the wars with Bonaparte, 
and he was impressed on board one of the King’s ships. 
He went on for years in a state of the most entire ungod- 
liness, his poor mother having given him up for lost. One 
day he was ill, and all at once bethought himself of his old 
Bible, which he had not seen since he had been on board 
that ship ; he read some of the passages which his mother 
had marked, became a converted man, came back to Eng- 
land, became first a minister of Christ, and then the tutor 
of a college; and his name now is as fragrant ointment to 
multitudes among us who know what that man’s character 
is. If he were here, he would, with stammering tongue— 
for he is very aged and full of infirmities—make you under- 
stand what he owes to his mother’s prayers, to which, as he 
has declared to me hundreds of times, he attributes his 
conversion. Another case, and I shall have done. A man 
well known on our London stage, not only as a dramatic 
author, but as a man of high pre-eminence in the dramatic 
art and practice, and who, thirty years ago, was in this me- 
tropolis running an entire round of riot and of revelry, told 
me, after he had become a preacher of Christ’s Gospel, that 
through all those years of riot and revelry in connection 
with the stage and the green-room at Covent Garden and 
other places, he always heard his mother’s voice ringing in 
his ears. Her very words, and the tones of her voice, came 
to his recollection, and he was fairly followed by his mother 
long after she had gone to heaven. It ended in his con- 
version, and he bade me tell all men that that life of his 
had been continually deteriorating his moral nature ; and 
he also bade me tell all mothers never to despair of an un- 
godly son, even if he should take to the boards, but to pray 
on, and hope on, and believe on. Encouragement! There is 
the amplest and the richest encouragement for all who will — 


SYSTEMATIC GIVING. 43 


recognise their dependence upon God, who will earnestly 
seek for the blessing, and whose example and influence at 
home shall be in harmony with that blessing. Let us do 
as David did when he “ returned and blessed his house.” 
Our meeting here to-day is only subsidiary to our great 
purpose: it is to home influence, and home prayers, and 
home example that we must look. Christian brethren, 
let your prayers in your household be genuine prayers ; 


‘transfuse them with earnestness for those who dre kneel- 


ing with you. Let them not be mere utterances of words, 
but travail in birth for the souls of your children, and you 
shall find, as so many of us have done, that along with the 
fathers there shall come up the children, a seed to serve the 
Lord, and a generation to called Him blessed. 


X. Systematic Giving. Sy Rev. Dr. Date. 


IT was easy to secure a general assent to two of the 
principles of giving—namely, that giving should be con- 
scientious, and that it should bear a just proportion to a 
man’s income. But when they proceeded to urge that it 
should be systematic also, they were met with grave objec- 
tions. It was urged by some that giving on impulse was 
far nobler than giving mechanically and on system ; it was 
urged by others that it was impossible for persons whose 
income varied from week to week and from month to 
month to devote a definite portion of their income to the 


service of God and the poor. If a man gave conscien- 


tiously, and gave proportionately, they could not complain; 
but how was it possible for a man who believed that he 
ought to give a fair proportion of his income to maintain 
the worship of God, to diffuse the Gospel, and to alleviate 
the sufferings of the poor, to feel certain that he did that, 
if he did not give systematically? No one disputed that 
the larger a man’s income was, the more he ought to give ; 
but it seemed to him an inevitable conclusion that the 
giving ought to be exactly proportionate to their means. 
There were many persons of kindly spirit and generous 
disposition, the amount of whose giving depended on 
accidental circumstances, as, for example, an eloquent 
sermon or a powerfully-written appeal. It was no proof 


+4 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


of a man’s having given enough that he had given when he 
was asked, or even that he had given what was expected. 
If he ought to devote a certain proportion of his property 
to God and the poor, he ought to do it whether he was 
asked or not ; he ought to have some standard below which 
his conscience would not allow him to fall, and, having 
fixed the proper proportion at the beginning of the year, 
whether appeals were made to him or not, he ought to take 
care that by the end of the year that proportion was fully 
and completely given. Some persons thought it quite 
enough to give what they could spare. That was the most 
curious standard conceivable. Why, he never took up a 
catalogue of books without seeing the names of some that 
he sadly wanted. He never saw a map of Europe in the 
summer without feeling that his health would be a great 
deal more vigorous if he could see in the autumn the Rhine 
or the Tiber, the Rhone or the Danube. He never passed 
the window of a toy-shop without seeing something that 
would make four pairs of bright eyes at home look a great 
deal brighter. The question, What could be spared? was 
one by which duty in the matter of giving could never 
be rightly determined. As regarded the proper propor- 
tion to be given, it must be interesting to every thoughtful 
man to observe how widely the practice of tithing had pre-— 
vailed among both heathen and Christian nations as well — 
as among the Jewish people. That practice existed among 
the ancient people of Rome, among all the various tribes | 
of ancient Greece, in the Greek colonies of Asia Minor, © 
and in Carthage. Under the Mosaic economy every Jew — 
had to give at least two tithes of his property for God and © 
the poor. But he (Mr. Dale) did not feel bound by the — 
law of tithes. It seemed to him that while, under the old : 


dispensation, God gave definite rules for the ordering of 
human conduct, He now required men to give from the 
principle of love. In the absence of the law of tithing he 
thankfully said that, “knowing the grace of Jesus Christ,” 
it became them to consecrate at least as much as the Jewish 
nation. About the fourth century the principle of tithing” 
began to be recognised in the Christian Church: it was_ 
carried out subseqently in various forms; and that Society 
now appealed to the public whether the practice of the 
Jews, at least as regarded giving, was not binding upon 


SYSTEMATIC GIVING. 45 


Christians. It had been said that to stop giving by 
impulse would be to rob it of half its glory. But how sad 
was it to the impulse not to have anything to give whena 
strong appeal was made! and on that account, if on no 
other, he might advocate systematic giving. If he thought 
the Society likely to close up the springs of impulse, that 
was certainly the last time he should ever appear on its 
platform. But there was danger in impulse if it did not 
lead to suitable action. When Christ’s heart was moved 
with compassion, He healed the leper and multiplied the 
five loaves into provision for five thousand ; and there they 
had an illustration of the manner in which compassion and 
beneficence might be beautifully blended. As for impulse 
and enthusiasm, he supposed that if, after the Corinthians, 
in response to Paul’s appeal, had laid aside according to 
their means, they had wished to give more, the Apostle 
would scarcely have objected ; and, in the like manner, in 
these days ladies who gave their two guineas for a new 
bonnet, might, if they pleased, indulge a generous impulse 
after they had done what they felt bound to do system- 
atically. Systematic giving meant putting a loaf in the 
cupboard where there was none; it meant circulating the 
Bible in distant lands ; it meant sending more missionaries 
to India and China. Let it not be supposed that in 
establishing this Society its founders meant to bring a 
charge of want of liberality against the English public 
generally. On the contrary, they were proud of the 
liberality of their country, and especially of the manner in 
which Englishmen recently gave for the relief of Lanca- 
shire distress. But the way to test this matter was to 
consider the pressing wants of our own and foreign lands, 
They wanted to secure the regular progress of the ship by 
means of the screw and the paddle; and if impulse after- 
wards filled the sails, they would joyfully hail that additional 
aid. They had nothing to fear as a nation with regard to 
their position in the earth; but now that the country 
was absorbed in commerce, let its old enthusiasm be 
renewed in the wide-world diffusion of the Gospel, and in 
the alleviation of human misery wherever it was to be 
found. 


\ 


46 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


aR REE 


XI. Wesleyans and the Church of England. 
By the DEAN OF CANTERBURY. 


IT gave him great pleasure to be present, as he had for 
years entertained the greatest respect for their body. He 
believed that to them was due very much of the life now 
to be found in the Church of England. Were John Wesley 
now to return, he would see in the Church an earnestness 
and real godliness which in his time were crushed out by 
formalism. . He felt that he was doing nothing more than 
his duty in offering his tribute to the founder of their body 
for the great good he had done to the Church. For him- 
self he believed that a good deal was gained by difference 
of opinion. They were treading close upon the heels of 
the Church Missionary Society, but he had no narrow feel- 
ing on the subject, and he should be very sorry if the two 
societies did not work together in love. He hoped that 
the Society’s income would advance to a quarter of a million, 
but of course he or his friends would keep ahead if they 
could. They had the Bible in common, and as long as 
they followed the precepts of that book, they would not be 
far apart. Speaking of the advances of the Papacy, the 
Dean said: “ There is that wonderful revival of medizval 
superstition amongst us, and here I may give a reason why 
I am grateful to this Society. You know that in our city 
of Canterbury we have lately had cardinals, and dukes, 
and bishops, and all sorts of people come down to open a 
chapel dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury (Thomas a 
Becket, as we know him), and yet the Church of England 
has not done anything to right herself. But your body 
has, because you have done something at Rome. Under 
the freedom that now exists in Italy, there are four com- 
munities who have appointed missionaries at Rome; but 
the Church of England is not one of them, therefore they 
are not ‘avenging me of mine adversary, but you are. 
Under the walls of the Vatican you have established in 
Rome itself a mission in which you are holding up that 
lamp of light which we trust both the Church of England 
and your body are holding up in this country ; therefore 
I thank you for carrying to Rome that light which those at 
Canterbury are endeavouring, if not altogether to put out, 
at least to darken. Therefore I thank you very much for 


MISSION WORK IN LONDON. 47 


the mission you have opened at Rome.” He then referred 
to his visit to America, where he said he had several means 
of seeing the greatness of their position. At one of the 
meetings of the Evangelical Alliance a bishop was called 
upon to open the proceedings with prayer, and the person 
who rose up and answered this was a negro gentleman, a 
bishop in the Episcopal Methodist Church of America ; 
and a more simple, well-arranged prayer was not offered 
during the whole of the meeting of the Alliance, or one that 
was more thoroughly Biblical. Although many little things 
had happened from time to time ruffling tempers on both 
sides, he trusted that the Wesleyans and the Church of 
England would in faith, love, and charity unite in winning 
the world to Christ. 


XII. Mission Work in the City of London. 
By Rev. J. P. Cuown. 


I CANNOT refuse the demand which you have made upon 
me, and in saying a few words to you I should like to take 
as a text the resolution which has been put into my hands. 
The text is the committee, and allow me to say the most 
important thing that has to be done this morning is the 
choice of the committee, because whatever may be said 
about the work in which you are engaged, the committee 
are the men to doit. I remember, in connection with the 
late Arctic expedition, what wonderful pains \,ere taken 
about the ships, their stores, and all appertaining to their 
appointment; but the great matter was about the men by 
whom the officers and ships were to be manned. It was 
felt that the success of the expedition would depend entirely 
upon them. We all know if there is any work of special 
danger or honour, there must be picked men into whose 
care it shall be entrusted, and who shall feel the responsi- 
bility that is laid upon them. Now you are choosing the 
committee for your work next year; I want you to feel 
that in doing so you pledge yourselves to render them 
constant and generous support. You ask them to do this 
great and glorious work. ia the Bible order giving is put 
before praying. It is written: “ Prayer also shall be made 
for Him continually,” when the giving has been attended 


48 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


to; “Daily also shall He be praised,” for the spirit of 
praise is sure to follow. I never knew a giving soul anda 
praying soul that was not a praising soul. I never knewa 
Society that had the grace of giving and the grace of pray- 
ing, that laid its gifts upon the altar and then prayed 
“Thy kingdom come,” that had not a soul full of praise, 
inspired with thankfulness and animated with joy. I want 
you to supply the golden sinews for the war in which you 
are calling upon your committee to engage—a holy war 
to which they are pledging themselves with every form of 
evil with which they may have to grapple, seeking the 
deliverance of sinful men, and the advancement of the 
glory of God. Then I want you to feel another thing, and 
that is that you pledge yourselves to sustain your com- 
mittee by your sympathy and prayer. You send them 
as officers to gather together your forces, and to marshal 
them for the battle, and to lead them on under the standard 
of the Cross. Be it yours to be upon the mountain of 
communion with God, with arms uplifted in earnest im- 
portunate prayer that shall bring down a blessing, without 
which the bravest spirit may never win. It is according 
to the prayer on the hilltop that the tide of battle is turned 
in the plain; and it is as the arms are uplifted in petition 
that the arms that wield the sword and wave the standard 
are made strong in the mighty power of God, and triumphant 
in the great and glorious work. You send your committee 
and the noble band of labourers under their care into the 
waste, the desert places of the wilderness around. Be it 
yours to be like Elijah upon the slopes of your Carmel 
Mount, whence you shall pray to God who sends the 
showers of rain, that the Divine blessing may descend— 
nay, that He may come of whom it is said, “ He shall fall 
like rain upon the mown grass, and the wilderness shall be 
turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be as a 
garden of the Lord.” I ask for this, brethren, on behalf of 
your committee, because they are men who are worthy of 
it. They are tried men; you know it in their character; 
you hear it in their words. I see most of them have the 
very becoming sign of conventional regard in the Esq. 
added to the name; very proper and right. Well, I would 
give them a diploma this morning, and I would ask you to 
acknowledge it, as I know you will. I would put at the 


MISSION WORK IN LONDON. 49 


end of the name of every one of them 7. 7.—tried and 
true. It used to be said of the knights in the olden time 
that they won their spurs. Why, this noble band of 
warriors do win their spurs and everything appertaining 
to the noble work of Christian chivalry in which they are 
engaged of devotedness to the Master to whom they have 
given themselves. I ask this from you because they are 
representative men, and they have the whole Evangelical 
Church of Christ embodied amongst themselves. They 
have within them the different departments of the living 
Church of the living God; and there is not one of you but 
may feel that the interests of your Church are represented 
in them. And while they, therefore, from the centre of 
their instrumentality and labour extend their instrumen- 
tality, be it yours from the circumference in every part of 
the circle to gather closely to the centre in loving sympathy 
and prayer, and our Lord’s petition shall be answered when 
He said, “ Father, that they may be one in us, as Thou in 
Me, and I in Thee.” That is Christian union. Wedo not 
always understand it—it is not merely one with another. 
I do not think much of that uniess we are quite sure that 
it is done in the right spirit ; but if we are one with Christ, 
and draw down the light that comes flowing into our souls, 
we are sure to be one with Him. May I remind you 
of the greatness of the work you ask these gentlemen to 
undertake as a reason why prayer should be given on its 
behalf. The City Mission is a great work in any ordinary 
city ; but the London City Mission is one the magnitude 
of whose work no thought can conceive, and no passion or 
zeal that is merely human can ever adequately estimate. 
We feel that we are doing a Divine work in “‘ beginning 
at Jerusalem.” We are to go to the distant parts of the 
earth, but it must be “beginning at Jerusalem.” Has it 
ever occurred to you to remember with what Divine sym- 
pathy and interest God seems to look upon great cities ? 
He would have spared the cities of the plain if only ten 
righteous men could have been found, though in the lowest 
cottage within their boundaries ; unknown, or, if known, 
only to be despised by the myriads who were spared 
because they were amongst them. Do you not remember 
how He sent His servant down to ancient Nineveh, and 
hew He accepted their repentance when they prostrated 
E 


50 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


themselves before Him ; and though the poor weak servant 
was offended, the infinitely holy God was pleased with their 
repentance, and pardoned their sin, and saved them from 
the threatening that had been denounced? Do we not 
remember how the Divine Lord sat there upon Mount 
Olivet, how tears streamed from those eyes for those who 
never wept for themselves, as He thought of the doom that 
was coming upon them? We know that God is interested 
in London, and we know it as truly as we know it of those 
ancient cities and of Jerusalem. The very state of things 
proves it must be so, and God has shown it in His dealings 
with us. And oh, remembering the vastness of the field, 
one which no arithmetic can calculate, and no geographical 
boundaries can ever fill up, calling to mind that though, 
more than any city in the world, it may be famed for its 
philanthropical and Christian institutions, still what far- 
stretching wastes there are of dreary ignorance, and sufter- 
ing, and sin, and death that scarcely seem to be touched, 
and what myriads there are who seem to be living in the 
midst of it all unnoticed by any save our missionaries! 
Look at the wonderful growth of the city, to be computed 
by millions almost within the memory of living men; and 
if we feel that a great city commands our concern, what 
shall we say of that which is a world rather than a city, an 
aggregate of cities rather than a city itself, and which 
absorbs a great city into its population every year? And 
then remember the influence that appertains to London. 
London won to Christ, the world is won to Christ. London 
brought to the feet of the Saviour should be like the great 
mountain the prophet spoke of, in our land and among the 
nations of the earth, to which all nations should say, “Come, 
and let us go to the house of the Lord ;” and, catching 
the sun’s bright beams, shall flash them forth on all the 
earth, and the showers of heaven and streams from the 
mountain being poured in living torrents upon the earth 
beneath, the Divine glory shall be manifested, the whole 
earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, and all 
men shall call Him blessed. 


r 
a ee ee 


HOME -MISSIONS. gr 


XIII. Home Missions. Jy Rev. HERBER Evans. 


ON my railway route up here I passed a very extensive 
nursery-garden—a large plot of ground set apart for the 
propagation of all kinds of plants, shrubs, and young trees. 
This nursery needs constant care, incessant watchfulness, 
and careful gardening. It contains the reserve stock of 
young plants for supplying failure by disease, accident, 
and death in all the surrounding gardens, and private as 
well as public parks. They are all indebted and they all 
look to the nursery-garden for their supply. You in 
London have heard the cheering news of the success of 
the missionaries in the foreign fields, in the British colonies, 
and the distant isles. To-night, sir, we have met to look 
after the nursery-garden, to which they are all indebted. 
Neglect this, and when your missionaries, and colpor- 
teurs, and Bible translators fall in the far-off field of 
battle, who shall take up the weapons dropping from 
their dying hands? We must now, as of old begin at 
Jerusalem. The Home Church must first be endued 
with power from on high, else she can only send forth a 
vacillating Peter, and a doubting Thomas. But once the 
Holy Ghost comes upon us at the starting-point, then the 
very same men are witnesses, apostles, martyrs, ready for 
all Judea, Samaria, and unto the utmost parts of the earth. 
We in Wales have learnt not to neglect our most insig- 
nificant, our most out-of-the-way little Bethels, because 
although they cannot give us a large collection towards 
our colleges and public movements, yet our greatest 
preachers have come from our small chapels, from these 
little flocks in Israel How can you expect young men 
to commence preaching in these large churches, full of I 
don’t know how many doctors and critics? I should like 
to know how many of you have tried it. No, a man likes 
to try his wings in the village chapel—the country sanc- 
tuary. Trawsfynyd in the mountains gave us our Williams, 
and Llansanan, that never heard a railway whistle, gave 
us our Henry Rees, and if a collecting-book for one of 
these little interests happens to come in your way—some- 
times, we do a little in that way—well, don’t throw it 
aside—it may be towards a smali cause which will nurse 
a man who will shake the world. When a late candidate 


- 


§2 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


for the representation of Liverpool—I wish I could have 
said more—visited some landed property in the country 
the other day, a faithful brother had been on the watch for 
him, with his collecting-book ready. He saw him climb- 
ing one of our hills, followed him, and caught him just 
as he got to the “Rest and Be Thankful,’ and having 
presented his book, Mr. Caine, like a noble-hearted 
Englishman and a Christian, received it with glee, and 
shouted to his father-in-law climbing after him, “See, a 
collecting-book has found me on the top of a mountain 
in Wales,’ and Mr. Caine can now, I believe, claim the 
honour of having subscribed to a chapel cause on a higher 
ground and nearer to heaven than any man in Great 
Britain. I say again that these small nurseries of our 
great preachers and greater missionaries must not be 
neglected. Truro, in Cornwall, must not be neglected, 
else there will be no Henry Martyn to translate the New 
Testament to the Persians. If you wish another William 
Jones for India, the nursery-garden at Llanwrin must not 
be overlooked. A sickly and bedwarfed Christianity at 
home will never furnish the requisite labourers or the 
necessary funds for the work in the foreign fields. What 
can we do, then, to make this Society a greater power ? 
We can strengthen and intensify our own conceptions of 
duty. Take a Monday morning provincial newspaper, 
and see the amount of drunkenness, brutality, and wife- 
kicking that takes place from Saturday night until Mon- 
day morning. Let any one read the black list, and tell 
me that this Home Missionary Society is not wanted! 
Yes, with its power increased a thousand-fold. Why, sir, 
the very men who despise our work are great glorifers 
of every other attempt to lessen physical evils. They are 
prodigal of their praise when speaking about vaccination 
and chloroform reducing to one-third the physical evils 
suffered by our fathers. But how niggard they are of their 
recommendation where a Home Missionary gives his life 
to lessen these brutalities, to diminish the immoralities by 
leading men and women to a higher, nobler, Christian life, 
which does and must bring with it freedom from suffering. 
What can we do? We ought to endeavour to make all 
our Churches—what, in fact, the first Churches were— 
local missionary associations. There are the classes in 


—- 


HOME MISSIONS. 53 


our Churches of which much more can be made in this 
direction. First, the children. Is it not possible to pro- 
duce an enticing, fascinating missionary catechism to teach 
all the children of our Churches ? We have Band of Hope, 
temperance, and theological catechisms without number, 
and they have done good service. I, sir, never could learn 
history until I got it in a catechism. A question always 
provokes a lad to look for the answer. Why should we be 
more anxious that our children should know how America 
became free and Germany became one, than to know how 
Polynesia was civilized and South Africa civilized? Why 
should they know about Prince Bismarck and George 
Washington, more than about John Williams, George 
Whitfield, and Robert Moffat? Let us get a fascinating 
missionary catechism, giving all the heroic names and 
deeds of all the missionaries of Jesus, not of one denom- 
ination, not of the foreign field only, but of every field and 
every name. Let us educate them in this historic creed, 
and they will know, and they will feel, and they will 
sympathise, they will help, and we shall neither want 
money nor have failure. Then come our ladies, sir, a 
great power, lying dormant in almost every Church. Is 
it possible that we are afraid to call forth this powerful 
female help, lest it overwhelm us or perhaps outshine us? 
I am glad to see in your report a call for female mission- 
aries to visit mothers to urge them to send their children 
to the Sunday and day schools. Not, alas! as a minister, 
but as a member of a School Board, I can say “Amen” to 
that. We have no need to fear the light, and we wish 
to see our children educated. A traveller once passed a 
gentleman’s park, and saw a notice on a board, “ Every 
dog found in this park will be shot at once.” “Upon my 
word,” says the traveller, “it is a serious thing for dogs in 
this neighbourhood if they can’t read.” The man had an 
idea, sir, that even dogs ought to know the laws con- 
cerning themselves. But it is far more serious for a man 
if he cannot read the laws of heaven and earth that bear 
upon himself. We call, then, for female missionaries every- 
where, to try and teach them the laws of God and man. 
Let our Protestant mothers and sisters give the lie to that 
assertion that it is the Roman Catholic religion alone that 
can kindle their charity, labour, and perseverance. Oh, 


54 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


for the love of Mary, blended with the diligence of Martha, 
the spirit of holy women of old, of those true brave 
women who followed Christ from Galilee to Jerusalem, 
ministering to Him, and who wept at the cross, and watched 
at the sepulchre when Judas had proved a traitor and Peter 
a coward! Women who adhered, who clung to Him and 
His cause when all the world had deserted Him—oh, that 
God would fill our Churches with such women again! 
There is another class lying dormant in our Churches, 
possessing great unexercised power—I mean those religious 
stewards who always have plenty of time to look after 
others, because they have nothing to do themselves. They 
always speak of Christian workers in the Church in the 
third person plural. They never say “we;” no, they 
keep themselves separate, in order to have the right to 
grumble at the work of everybody else. Don’t you know 
them? Blessed is your experience then if you do not. 
Ask one of them to pray; and he will complain, and 
whine, and grumble for five minutes before he thanks God 
for anything. He has marked the weeds in the whole 
garden, but has missed every flower with its sweetness and 
beauty. He knows every Judas within a ten miles cir- 
cumference, but he has not seen a single John anywhere. 
Do as you will, you cannot please his class. They are like 
that cross-grained old farmer who caught a young girl 
going through his field. “Who gave you leave to go 
through that field?” “I thought there was a path.” “A 
path; no, there is not.” -“Vll go back then bac 
indeed! I own back and fore.” So she could not move 
to please him. So of these idlers who are at large in Zion 
—the religious grumblers of our congregations. You can 
never please them. If you come back you are not doing 
right ; if you go forward you are doing wrong. Oh, that 
they would all unite to start a cause of their own! I 
seriously say that would be the only means of enabling 
them to taste the joy of serving Christ, and to bless their 
generation. All members of our Churches who are not 
Christian workers are great hindrances to earnest labourers, 
and as lookers on, they are miserable themselves. Bos- 
well was once on board a vessel in a violent storm, and, 
like myself, was a very indifferent sailor, and as the ship 
began pitching and tossing he rushed from sailor to sailor 


HOME MISSIONS. 55 


asking, “Are we in danger?” and, of course, hindering 
them in their work. One of the sailors, who was a bit of 
a philosopher, at last said to him: “ Yes, we are in terrible 
danger. Hold this rope; the ship is nearly sinking.” He 
held it with all his might until the storm was over. The 
sailor released him, saying, “There, now, you have been 
holding a useless rope; but it has kept you out of the 
way, and made you happy.” If we wish to add to the 
peace and joy of our Churches, if we wish to treble their 
power of good, let us endeavour to get every member to 
lay hold of a rope, to do some work. Let us all stand up 
for Jesus. Every Christian worker should be like an 
orange tree, fragrant as well as faithful. The constant 
complaint is want of men, and especially want of the 
right men—men who can talk, and men who have some- 
thing to talk about. We had an old Welsh preacher, Mr. 
Chairman, full of what we call Zwy/, and that word is, like 
many other Welsh things, untranslatable into English ; 
but ZwyZ means inspiration—in the spirit to speak; and 
this old brother once said in the pulpit, “ Oh, I am in the 
spirit, in the hwyl to preach, if I had only something to 
say!” A man who can talk, and who has nothing to say, 
soon becomes a bore. You want men who can think, and 
who will dare to say what they think, though they have 
never heard it, nor seen it in a book before—men whe 
believe that the Spirit inspires now. It used to be the 
custom in Wales years ago to accommodate the ministers 
at the homes of all the well-to-do farmers in every Church 
month by month, The children were then brought into 
contact with the ministers, and there was no dearth of 
splendid preachers. Now, however—and it is something 
for you to get a Welshman to confess a fall off in any- 
thing in beautiful Wales—we have now fallen to imitate 
our English neighbours, by appointing a settled house to 
accommodate the preachers, and having thought seriously 
of this—I hope my words will ring through the Princi- 
pality—I say, “Open your doors again to the men of God 
who preach the Gospel among you.” Remember the 
Divine admonition—“ Be not forgetful to entertain stran- 
gers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” 
When I was a lad I was a member of a small country 
chapel. We could only afford to get one sermon a 


56 PLATFORM AIDS—HOME WORK. 


Sabbath, and the remuneration for that one was always a 
shilling. Well do I remember my first sermon in that 
chapel, and that wonderful shilling! Nevertheless, out of 
that little sanctuary in my time have come forth over a 
dozen ministers of the Gospel. We were all taught to 
respect the ministers of the Gospel. They came to our 
houses and spoke to us of Jesus, until it became our 
highest ambition to serve the same Master. I rejoice to 
think of the showers of blessing now descending on the 
Churches connected with your Society, because I have 
always found that every revival in the Principality always 
replenishes us with a.new stock of ministers full of fire 
and of faith in the Holy Ghost. Old Williams, of Troed- 
rhiwdalar, who left us the other day—(I knew him well)— 
after preaching the Gospel with great power for seventy- 
five years: many a time I have heard him break forth in 
the midst of his sermon, “ You must excuse my warmth 
and enthusiasm; I am one of the children of the old 
revival at Llanwrtyd.” He deemed it a sufficient ex- 
planation. Why, he could not speak of Jesus in his 96th 
year without bubbling over with love, joy, and hwyl. “I 
am a child of the old revival at Llanwrtyd.” Oh, for 
thousands of such children as the fruit of this revival now! 
Men born into the kingdom in the midst of strong faith, 
with the love of God kindled within them into a flame of 
such inextinguishable brilliance and power that will glow 
and burn unto the end of a long patriarchal life. This 
resolution requests the prayers of the meeting. Then we 
do still believe in prayer? Yes, more firmly than ever. 
This revival wave is spreading; we have heard of it to- 
night in Devonshire, Somersetshire, Hampshire, and Dur- 
ham, and it is passing over parts of the Principality. The 
challenge was boldly asked as in the days of Job, “‘ What 
profit should we have if we pray to Him?” The answer is 
coming down, sir, from the everlasting God as it always 
will come down, if there are only men full of faith to 
accept the challenge. Yes, the answer is descending in 
showers of blessing throughout the land. The Lord of 
Hosts is with us, blessing the evangelists as the flying 
column sent forth to do quick and effectual service, blessing 
also the standing army of the disciplined ministry needed 
to carry on the continued warfare. Let each one con- 


MISSIONARY QUALIFICATIONS. 57 


secrate his best to the Lord, believing that there is a day 


of retrospect to come for us in this world, and a day of 
reckoning, a day of grand review in the next. Let every- 
one present say, in the words of Dr. Guthrie’s favourite 
motto, 


“T live for those that love me, 
For those that know me true, 
For the heaven that smiles above me, 
And waits my coming, too. 


“ For the cause that needs assistance, 
For the wrongs that need resistance, 
For the future in the distance, 

For the good that I can do.” 


II. FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


I. Missionary Qualifications. By the Ricut Rev 
BisHop ELLicorr. 


THESE are days in which we hear strange things indeed 
said as to the qualifications of those who shall go forth 
into the great mission field. I am sure that at any rate 
I may unreprovedly say that there are two very serious 
heresies on this subject—two real missionary heresies, 
which here we cannot but deeply deprecate, and one of 
them is this—‘Civilize first and Christianize afterwards.” 
How often do we hear this heresy put forward, sometimes 


with simple and good intentions, and with a belief—an 


innocent belief—that in the natural order of things it must 
be so; sometimes, I fear, with other and very different 
motives. But, I ask, can we here tolerate any such senti- 
ment? What! is Christ, our Master and King, to wait 
until the merchantman has made the way before Him? 
Oh, no, my friends, civilize first and Christianize after- 
wards is one of those expressions in regard to missionary 
labour which we shall all, and especially in these times 
when we hear it produced in so many different ways, 
utterly and distinctly disavow. It is quite right that 
the Christian missionary should likewise be himself the 
pioneer of civilization. Let civilization go forward with 


58 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


Christianity—blessed by Christianity—but never let the 
one—civilization—be placed before the other. I may here 
say that we are acting on the principle I have mentioned. 
Our missionaries are now recognising that their duty is 
first of all to preach Christ crucified, and then, also, to 
do everything that God the Holy Ghost puts into their 
souls in the way of raising the heathen people among 
whom they labour. Both must go together, but Christian- 
izing and Christianity ever, ever first. The second heresy, 
as I may venture to call it, in regard to the missionary 
labour, and against which the noble sentence I have read 
to you is a distinct protest, may be thus briefly formulated: 
“Teach those with whom you have to deal by showing 
them that Christianity is somewhat better than the religion 
that the people you are speaking to may profess.” This 
is a more deadly heresy, my dear friends, than the one I 
have just alluded to; for what is it but putting in com- 
petition with other religions the one true and only religion 
—the belief in our Lord and Master. And here I would 
say, let no one think that I am, as it were, fighting 
shadows. Have we not heard, not so very long ago, lec- 
tures in time-honoured edifices pointing in this direction ? 
Have we not seen Christianity often placed on a kind of 
level very little above that of other religions, and are we 
not told that the way in which our missionaries may most 
successfully work is to acquire a full knowledge of the 
ancient religions, and, in fact, to show how Christianity is 
a kind of improvement upon them. Now, my friends, God 
forbid that our missionaries should ever act in such a spirit 
as this. Good it is, God knoweth, and useful is it to study, 
especially in some of the more cultivated nations, the 
forms of ancient faith. I will say at once, in regard even of 
my poor self and my own poor thoughts on this subject, 
that some of the most fruitful hours of my passing life 
have been spent in reading, with a kind of wonder and of 
awe, some of the ancient hymns, say, ina work now hoar 
with the rime of forty centurics—the “ Rig-Veda ”—a book 
of Brahmanic praise. I make no pretence, but through 
the medium of translations I have read, and wondered as 
I read, the marvellous ethics of some of the great Bud- 
dhist treatises—say such an old one as “ The Pathway of 
Virtue.” I have read and I have wondered, and I have 


a 


MISSIONARY QUALIFICATIONS. 59 


felt that God has never left Himself without a witness in 
the human heart ; nay, I have read, too, and that not with- 
out profit, some of those wondrous hymns and invocations 
which the reader will find in that strange, strange book of 
religion, the “ Zend-Avesta” of the now dying-out Par- 
sees. I feel too much sympathy to denounce such studies 
as those, but I do earnestly protest against that mode of 
reasoning and thinking in regard to missionary matters 
which places our own religion in any degree of comparison 
or relation to others. My dear friends, let the missionary 
acquire that knowledge, for I believe it will be good and 
useful to him; but let him know that the knowledge for 
which he has to work in the hearts of those to whom he 
speaks is one only—it is Christ crucified. What he has to 
preach is that to which every human heart will listen— 
every human heart—redemption. Redemption is_ that 
which the missionary must bear—redemption through 
Christ crucified is His message, and this message he must 
preach as though it were different in degree, in kind, in 
everything from every other message that the world has 
yet received. I think that of all the mysteriously strange 
thoughts that can occupy our minds, none is more strange 
Or more mysterious than this—how such a religion as 
Mohammedanism can hold the sway over the millions that 
it does, and how at this present time it can be making 
even, as I humbly believe them to be, despairing and 
dying efforts, but still efforts that are such as have never 
been known in anything like the experience of the last 
century. How strange that such a religion—a religion 
that those who are friends to no religion at all denounce 
as one of the most foolish forms of faith that can be con- 
ceived—should at the present time thrive ; and strange, 
too, that in West Africa, for instance, it should be to some 
extent spreading. Think for a moment if we take a 
hundred as the basis of our calculation, that thirty or so 
will represent the Christians; but how many to the 
hundred are the Mohammedans, think you? Half as 
many as there are Christians. I believe in “ Howe’s 
Physical Atlas,” from which I am mentally quoting, Mo- 
hammedans are placed as fifteen parts, while Christians are 
only put as two. Is it not then, my dear friends, right that 
there should have been a conference on such a subject as 


60 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


this, and that those who are qualified to entertain the sub- 
ject should have conferred together ; and may we not look 
with the deepest interest to the results of that conference 
as showing themselves in increased effort in the Moham- 
medan world? For my own part I share the hope expres- 
sed, I think, by Sir Bartle Frere, in his admirably-written 
work on East Africa, in which he seems to ascribe such 
progress as has been made by Mohammedanism to the 
fact that Mohammedanism tends always, especially among 
such classes as the African natives, to raise them in the 
social scale, to civilize them, and to call them up into a 
position superior to that which they at present enjoy; and 
I learn from this most valued source that the converts to 
Mohammedanism are received on the easiest terms. What 
can be more captivating to one of those poor forlorn West 
or East Africans than to find himself suddenly raised from 
the lowest point of social degradation to share, as it were, 
the honours of the masters of the country to which they 
belong? These, I believe, are the reasons why Moham- 
medanism is making some degree of despairing advance, 
and we may thankfully rejoice that our Society has at once 
seen the deep necessity of meeting the evil of this marvel- 
lous, and in some degree mysterious, effort on the part of 
a false religion. With all. thankfulness must we have 
heard about the increase everywhere and the development 
of the native pastorate. Oh, my dear friends, there is 
nothing that can give us more true and real encourage- 
ment than seeing that God the Holy Ghost is now speak- 
ing to those darkened nations through people speaking 
their own language. We may rejoice, too, at another sign 
—a sign that perhaps we should pass over as scarcely 
worthy of our notice, but it is a very important sign— 
namely, that those native Churches are beginning to realize 
the duty of being self-sustaining. We do not for one 
moment take what I may speak of as a mere mercantile 
or pecuniary view of the matter. It isa blessing that it 
should be so that, taking a mercantile view of the matter, 
the funds needed may be transferred elsewhere; but I ask 
you to look deeper into it—look at the motives when those 
poor souls with so little are ready to spend that little in 
sustaining the Church to which they belong! What does 
that say for their sincerity and their earnestness? We all 


MISSIONARY QUALIFICATIONS. 61 


of us belong to a country that estimates, very often, a 
man’s earnestness by his liberality, and in this case we see 
that out of their deep poverty these native Churches are 
beginning to glorify God by sustaining themselves. And 
the report also reminds us that they are going one step 
further, and God be praised for it, they are now beginning 
to send out missions. This is the most encouraging thing 
—they are beginning to send out missions to their own 
poor darkened brethren. I might name many instances, 
but I could perhaps hardly choose one more instructive 
than that connected with the Yoruba-land Mission. There 
we know very well the moral tone of the people is very 
low. The poor inhabitants of Yoruba-land are very dark, 
and yet amid all this they are struggling, through district 
visitors and others, to go forth and teach their brethren. I 
forget whether the words were read; but if they were, I 
may venture to read them again: “ District visitors volun- 
tarily labour as evangelists among their heathen and 
Mohammedan fellow-townsmen.” And again, in another 
portion of the same paper, it is said that “those poor crea- 
tures are now going forward in the strength of the Holy 
Ghost to preach and to do the duty of apostles and mis- 
sionaries.” Do not, then, my dear friends, these things 
give us all great and ever-increasing ground for thanks 
that a future, and a mighty future, is opening before us. 
Whether we look to the Church in Africa, to which such 
deeply interesting allusions have been made by my valued 
friend, our President, or whether we look at cultivated 
India, we see and’ we read in the statements of those who 
are qualified to inform us the same encouraging facts. I 
read, for instance, in reference to poor uncultivated Africa, 
this very, very fruitful remark of Sir Bartle Frere: “Tribes 
seem only to need that moral bend which is supplied by 
Christianity.” It is as though Africa was now wanting— 
Africa was now appealing to us for help, as in the case of 
that Nyanza Mission. Oh, how that speaks to earnest 
hearts when the heathen King of Uganda sends for Chris- 
tian missionaries to come to him, and when, thank God, 
our liberality towards the mission that is fitting out has 
not been wanting. If there is any mission that I might 
venture to commend more particularly to your goodwill 
than another, it is the mission which, as we have heard, is 


62 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


—— 


working its way from the eastern coast of Africa towards 
its centre—that Nyanza Mission which will very soon be 
gathered together, and go forth to its mighty work. And 
last of all, have we not also great encouragement from 
what is going on in such a country as India? I do not 
know that I could do better than to quote two or three 
sentences from what has been stated by a most competent 
and at the same time a most unprejudiced observer, a 
distinguished professor of Sanscrit, Professor M. Williams, 
who has lately come back from India, and published his 
impressions of that country in a deeply interesting letter 
that appeared in the Zzmes. In that letter I noticed these 
words. He spoke of Christianity, and his remark was that 
it was doing much by way of education. I venture to 
think that the distinguished professor in some degree 
undervalued what Christianity is now doing in India; but 
at any rate he bore witness to this fact, that it is furthering 
education, and education is causing a great upheaving of 
thought and of old creeds. He adds further the encourag- 
ing statement that the ancient fortress of Hinduism is 
being undermined, and he says in addition to all this, that 
our Indian missionaries know full well that the complete 
disintegration of ancient faiths is in progress in the upper 
strata of Indian society. What encouragement, my dear 
friends, is there in words such as these. What calls now 
seem to be addressed to us on every side. Persia now 
opening herself to us; India gradually changing; more 
readers than were ever known before in the Punjaub. 
Our dear Lord and Master seems calling to us to go for- 
ward to our mighty labours, and can we, I ask, resist the 
call? There must be more men, more money, more en- 
thusiasm. It is Christ our Master who calls; wherefore, 
my dear friends, let us obey the heavenly calling, and as 
well as we may, go forward. 


II. Progress of Modern Unbelief, and Christian 
Missions. Jy Rev. G. S. BaRRETY. 


THERE are a great many signs in our modern English life 
which seem to me to threaten the earnestness and vitality 
of our Christian work. ‘The absorbing pursuit of wealth, 
the undermining of the spiritual tone of our Churches by 


MODERN UNBELIEF AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 63 


the habits and luxuries of an advanced civilization, the 
introduction into England of a great many things which 
had far better have been kept across the channel, and, 
above all, the prevalence of what threatens to be England’s 
national vice, the love of drink, are all signs of evil omen 
in our modern English life. But I refer to another danger, 
when I say that Christian missions may be entering upon 
a new and more perilous period of their history. I refer 
to the perils to which Christian missions and the faith 
which underlies them are exposed from the progress of 
modern unbelief, and that is the subject on which I wish 
to say a few words. I need not take up your time by 
proving the existence of a vast amount of unbelief in 
Europe at the present day. The signs of it you see every- 
where. A very distinguished writer has assured us with a 
confidence which, at least, proves that dogmatism is not 
confined to theologians, that Christianity has been touched 
by the spirit of the age, and is melting away. There can 
be no doubt that our position in regard to Christian mis- 
sions is very different from what the position of our fathers 
fifty years ago was. They had to defend the preaching of 
Christ to the heathen ; we are challenged as to the Christ 
we preach. It is no longer a question of whether it be right 
to send the Gospel to all nations; it is, “Have we any 
Gospel at all tosend?” I myself think, however, that the 
present phase of unbelief will not last very long; but the 
religious atmosphere of Europe at present reminds me of 
what some of us have seen in the morning when we have 
been in Scotland, when the mist has crept up from the 
valley, and very soon all the landscape—even the very 
mountains themselves—have been hidden from view. 
Something like that mist has been creeping over the land- 
marks of religious faith to-day ; and I do not wonder that 
a great many Christian people are very seriously concerned 
about it. Will you permit me just to say this one word by 
way of consolation? Do not forget that, though the mist 
may conceal the mountains, it cannot remove them; and 
though men do not see for a time the great realities of our 
faith, though we are told that Christianity is melting away 
—wait a little, wait till the sun shines again, wait till the 
light of God’s truth bursts out upon this modern unbelief, 
and then see if our Christianity is melting away. Like the 


$4 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


—_— 


mountains, it stands fast for ever and ever. But though the 
great fact of our Christian faith thus stands fast, our alle- 
giance to it may be shaken ; and that is what I am afraid 
of. And it seems to me that there are two ways in which 
this spirit of the age may affect our hearty allegiance to 
the great realities of the Christian faith. First of all, there 
is a danger that we may hold with a slackened grasp, in 
consequence of the discussions of recent times, the great 
truth which, I venture to say, is the foundation of every 
missionary society; that there is only one Saviour and 
Prince of mankind, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. 
The way in which this doubt, this loosening of our faith, 
begins is very gradual. Itis not denied that Christ is a 
Saviour; it is not denied that Christ is one of the great 
religious teachers of the race; but what is questioned is 
this: Is He the only Saviour? Is He the only religious 
teacher of the race? That is the way in which the doubt 
begins, and then presently some one comes forward, and 
suddenly parades before us the truth, as if it were a recent 
discovery of the spirit of the age—that God reveals Himself 
in many ways to man. Why, we had learned that long 
ago. It lies on the first page of St. John’s Gospel—“ The 
light is shining in the darkness; but the darkness com- 
prehendeth it not.” And then books are written—and I 
am not here to say a single word against these books 
—on the religions of mankind. They are very learned 
books; they are very charming books to read, but they 
are books confessedly dealing, not with the facts—the 
sad, terrible facts—of heathenism, as our missionaries see 
them with their own eyes every day, but they deal with the 
philosophy, the ethical teaching of the founders of these 
faiths ; and let me say, they do not give us all their ethical 
teaching. They take great care to pick out a few grains of 
gold from amidst a multitude of sand. Books are written, 
and then this doubt begins to feel a little more courage, 
and stands up, and commences to quote Mr. Tennyson. 
Doubt is very fond, by the way, of quoting Tennyson— 
fonder than it is of quoting the New Testament—and it 
says, “God fulfils Himself in many ways.” Here in Europe 
is one way, there in China is another way, in India is 
another way, and the result is this at the end, that even 
though some reverence be retained for Christ as a religious 


MODERN UNBELIEF AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 65 


teacher, it is only the reverence given to Him as one 
amongst many. He has no more exclusive claim on the 
homage and faith of mankind than Confucius or Buddha, we 
are told: He is one of the great religious reformers of the 
race. Now, what is very remarkable is this: this kind of 
unbelief is very much offended if you call it unbelief. I call 
it unbelief, and unbelief of the deadliest kind ; but it prefers 
to call itself broad theology. One thing at least is certain , 
it may be broad theology, but it is not the theology of the 
apostles of Christ. The men that lived with the Lord 
Jesus, who knew most of His mind, did not believe for one 
moment that religion was like food, simply a question of 
taste, for a race. They did not believe that truth varied 
with different degrees of longitude. All through their 
writings, from first to last, you can trace this conviction 
running, burning like a fire in their bones,—‘ Neither is 
there salvation in any other, for there is none other name 
given under heaven among men, whereby we may be saved.” 
They may have been in doubt about a great many things 
in connection with the revelation of* Christ ; there was no 
uncertainty here. The rock on which they built everything 
was this—not a philosophy, not an opinion, but a solid, 
impregnable, historical fact. We have seen and do testify 
that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the 
world.” Other revelations from God to man? Why, they 
never denied it. Their own Judaism was one of the prin- 
cipal ones; but no other revelation of God, no other in- 
carnation, save this, “ The Word was made flesh.” This is 
the final, complete utterance of God’s will for man—‘“ God, 
who at sundry times and in divers manners hath spoken 
in times past, hath in these latter days spoken unto us 
by His Son.” Now, I do not pretend to say how far this 
so-called broad theology has become the theology of any of 
our ministers or Churches; but I do venture to say this— 
if it has become the theology of any of our Churches, do 
not look to them for any very constant or considerable help 
in the missionary enterprise—and if ever (which may God 
forbid!) it should become the leading theology of our 
Churches, I think you may date from that day the begin- 
ning of the end of our missionary enterprise. I do not 
say that our missionary societies won’t go on for a time. 
Machinery does not stop all at once when you shut off the 
i, F 


56 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


steam; nor do missionary societies; but they will sttp, 
nevertheless. I am sure that there is no power, no spiritual 
force, strong enough to drive the wheels of the mighty work 
of the evangelization of the world, save that power which 
springs from the conviction that as there is one mathe- 
matics, one science, just as true in China as here in England, 
so there is but one religion, one Saviour, one King, who is 
King of kings, and Lord of lords. But we are told that all 
this is nonsense. We have been informed that it is quite 
possible for.our missionary societies to go on doing their 
work, although we may not hope to convert the world to 
Christianity. It is said to us, “ You forget that Christianity 
is more than a religion; it is a civilization as well. Well, 
now, let your missionaries take their printing-presses and 
their books, and do not forget to put in a few copies of 
Matthew Arnold’s work (he is growing now in grace and 
peace)—the old St. Matthew is a little worn out—and let 
them go out to the heathen, content with the humbler work, 
but not less useful, of educating and refining and civilizing 
these savage races.” Very well; but before we turn our 
missionary societies into limited companies for the promo- 
tion of civilization, I want to ask this question, “ Where are 
the missionaries to come from?” Who is going to take the 
printing-press, the books, and all these copies of Matthew 
Arnold's works into the distant and rude nations of the 
world? Why, you won't find the men. I never yet heard 
of a band of cultured unbelievers, even though they might 
have discovered the secret of Jesus, saying, “ We wili give 
up father and mother, and houses and lands, and even 
writing for the Contemporary Review itself. We will give 
up all these things for the sake of civilization? We will go 
to Cannibal Island, if you like; they may eat us, but it 
won’t matter; we do not count our lives dear to us for 
civilization’s sake.” I never heard the names of any of these 
self-denying heroes of culture. The fact is, civilization is 
just about as selfish as human nature is. It objects to be 
eaten. It prefers (I do not blame it for preferring, because 
it is civilization) the sweet reasonableness of society at 
home to being called, as my brother is, a foreign devil in 
Shanghai, or being cooked and eaten in some island of the 
South Seas. On the other hand, who are the men of whom 
the world is not worthy who have gone out leaving theif 


—— 


MODERN UNBELIEF AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 63 


English life and English homes? They have not been 
inspired by a passion for civilization—no, they are the 
successors of the apostles, the true Apostolical Succession 
this. I do not think we wanted a second in Madagascar. 
They are the successors of Paul and Barnabas—men who 
hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus. Ask 
them the secret of their devotion to the missionary cause ; 
ask them why many of them deliberately abandoned the 
chances of intellectual distinction in England; ask them 
why they have gone out, some of them to live in countries 
where to live means to suffer—and they will tell you, not 
for civilization, but for the sake of Him who, of His own 
deep and infinite love, has looked down upon us and said, 
“For My sake and the Gospel’s.” Of course they carried 
something more than the Gospel with them ; or I would 
-rather put it thus—because they carried the Gospel, they 
carried something more with them. The missionaries of 
Christ have always been missionaries of civilization. Asa 
matter of fact, and it has been alluded to again and again 
on this platform, the missionaries of the Lord Jesus Christ 
have always been the pioneers in the work of civilization. 
Who began the work in Madagascar? Our missionaries. 
Who began the work in the South Seas? Not “The Earl 
and the Doctor.” Earls and doctors, you know, go to 
visit South Sea Islands; they do not go to civilize, but to 
criticise. “I came, I saw (for a day), I criticised,” is their 
motto. But who did the work there? Why, our mis- 
sionaries. Who carried the printing-press into the heart 
of South Africa? Who made the road there, along which 
perhaps fifty years hence some conceited critic of mis- 
sionary work will travel? Who, but that dear and honoured 
friend Dr. Moffat, who seems like a tree planted by the 
rivers of water, that bringeth forth fruit, not merely, in 
season, but in old age? Who are doing the work of 
culture and civilization all over the world to-day—who but 
the missionaries ot Christ? All this istrue. But—lI say it 
openly—I scorn to rest the claims of a missionary society 
on the civilizing work which our missionaries are doing, 
and I| say again, the faith, the only faith that is the inspira- 
tion and strength of this missionary work; the faith that 
animated such men as Henry Martyn, and Carey, and John 
Williams, and our own Moffat—was not the faith that 


68 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


believed in the spelling-book and printing-press only: it 
believed in them, but it believed in something far nobler 
than them ; it believed that India, and China, and Africa 
needed Christ as much as Europe did; it, believed that 
Christ came into the world to save sinners, not in Europe 
alone. It wasa faith that yearned with a changeless loyalty * 
to the throne of Christ, to see Him crowned King of kings, 
and Lord of lords. Touch that faith, weaken it, you weaken 
the very mainspring of our modern missionary enterprise ; 
abandon that faith, and our missionary societies will not 
last twenty years. Of course this does not imply that we 
think that our Christianity should take the same form of 
intellectual expression or ecclesiastical organization in the 
East that it does in the West. We do not care about the 
form. Let the water of life take its shape from the vessel 
that holds it. All we care about is this: it is the water of 
life, and it is because we believe it is, because that river flows 
from beneath the throne of God and of the Lamb; that on 
its banks, and there alone, grows the tree of life, whose leaves 
are for the healing of the nations; it is because we believe 
this that we cannot but dig the channels into every land, 
ay, into the desert and the solitary place, that into every 
spot the life-giving stream may flow; and it shall come to 
pass—for the old words are true to-day—that everything 
which moveth, whithersoever the river shall come, shall 
live. I have not left myself time to do more than just 
briefly refer to the second danger to which our missionary 
enterprise is exposed from the spirit of the age. I refer to 
the temporary decay—for I believe it is only temporary — 
which modern doubt is introducing in our belief in the 
future punishment of sin. There was a time—lI daresay it 
is within the recollection of most of us here—when the 
principal motive appealed to at the public meetings of this 
Society in the support of it was the eternal doom that 
awaited the nations that knew not God. That time has 
gone by. The very phrase, “the perishing heathen,” I do 
not remember to have heard for years. We seldom hear 
anything at our missionary meetings of the danger or the 
judgment which the nations that die without Christ may 
incur from Christ’s hands. Now, I say frankly, I do not 
regret this. “We make no judgment as to the final and 
eternal condition of the heathen.” But what I ask is this; 


MODERN UNBELIEF AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 64 


s 
Is there no judgment being made—a judgment the reverse 
of the old and terrible one? It was once assumed that, 
because they were heathen, without a doubt they would 
perish everlastingly. It seems now to be assumed equally 
without doubt, that because they are heathen they shall be 
saved everlastingly. I speak with great diffidence, and 
with a sense of responsibility ; but I think I see indications 
of a spirit amongst our Churches which, if it means any- 
thing, means this: that the perils of moral probation in 
England vanish when you reach China or India. We seem 
to forget that there is quite as much danger in an unscrip- 
tural charity as there is from an unscriptural severity. At 
any rate, I am not sure that the deep and intense yearnings 
which the founders of this Society felt for the souls of the 
heathen, that intense longing for their salvation, the longing 
which, in tears and prayers, laid the foundation of this 
Society—I am not at all certain that that yearning and 
longing are not becoming rare amongst us; and it is no 
sign for good if they be. Whatever theory you may hold 
as to the future state of the heathen—and I confess frankly 
I have none—this is certain: that any theory that lessens 
your concern to preach Christ to them is by that fact self- 
condemned. Refuse, if you like, to speculate as to their 
eternal condition, but do not refuse to preach Christ to 
them. Whilst we are discussing, they are sinning—sinning, 
it is true, without law; but I remember that there are 
words—words dark and mysterious, I know, but whose 
very darkness may cover some judgment for them—“ For 
as many as have sinned without law shall perish without 
law.” At any rate this is certain: whatever their respon- 
sibility—and we can leave it with our God—our respon- 
sibility is clear. We are entrusted with the Gospel, and it 
is ours to obey Christ’s command, “Go ye out into all the 
world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.” I heard 
the other day a simple but touching story—many of you 
may have heard it; if so, you will forgive my repeating it 
—which perhaps may serve not only to conclude these 
remarks, but to deepen our sense of the enormous mass of 
work that yet remains to be done. A company, I think 
of gipsies, had encamped near a town. A lady who was 
occupied in doing the Master’s work, and going to seek the 
lost, asked permission to be allowed to enier one of the 


yo PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


vans. After some delay, she was allowed; and she found 
upon entering, a poor boy lying on a wretched bed, and 
evidently at the very point of death. She spoke to him 
kindly, but she received no answer. Then stooping down, 
she whispered in his ear the old verse, and oh, what a 
biography God is writing of that verse! “God so loved the 
world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting 
life.” There was no reply. A second time she repeated 
the same words, and a second time no notice was taken of 
what she said; and then a third time kneeling down, she 
whispered into his ear the same words; and then the eyes 
already glazed in death opened, and the thin white lips 
moved, and the whisper came out, “ Nobody never told me 
this before, but thank Him kindly for it.” What a rebuke 
to us, brethren, in those words. At this moment there are 
myriads of men and women and little children for whom 
Christ died, and whom He loves as much as He loves 
you and me, who, if they were to hear that old verse, 
“God so loved the world,” would say, “ Nobody never 
told me this before.” There are hearts, dark and degraded 
I know, foul with all the nameless vices of heathenism ; 
but hearts that Christ's blood can cleanse, that might 
turn to Him with a look of love, and say, “Thank Him 
kindly for it.” I ask you, I ask myself, “What are we 
doing to tell the world of the infinite love of God in 
Christ?” Others will speak to you of the claims of this 
Society ; but I, as the son of a missionary, and the brother 
of a missionary, cannot sit down without saying one word 
to the young men. I see numbers of young men present 
here to-day. Many of you are hoping to become heads of 
large business establishments in this city ; many of you, 
I daresay, have the ambition to take your share in the 
great political agitations of the State. It is an honourable 
ambition; but a nobler ambition is before you. The 
love of Christ may constrain you, and, filled with the 
grandeur and glory of Christ’s kingdom, that kingdom 
which shall have no end, you may to-day on your knees 
say to Him, “Lord, thou hast said the harvest truly is 
plenteous, but the labourers are few; Lord, wilt Thou take 
me as one of the labourers for Thy harvest?” It may 
require sacrifices, but you will not speak of sacrifice to 


—_— ——————— 


WORKING WITH GOD. 7 


Christ in the presence of His Cross. Men may sneer at 
you, or blame you; even your friends may question your 
motives ; but that will not move you. You have given up 
your life to the noblest of all works; the work that an 
archangel which surrounds the throne of God may well 
envy—the work of preaching Christ to the heathen. That 
is enough. And often and often when you go to your 
work in the far-distant land amidst days of loneliness and 
toil, away from all the English love and English home 
which now surrounds you, Christ will come, and, oh! He 
will come with that look and smile which means, “Well 
done, good and faithful servant.” Talk of sacrifice with 
Christ’s look thus upon you! You will say— 
“Happy if with my latest breath 
I may but speak His name ; 


Preach Him to all, and cry in death, 
Behold, behold, the Lamb !” 


III. Working with God. Sy Rev. C. H. Spurceon. 


I AM always sorry when you cheer me at the commence- 
ment, because you little know how you will be disap- 
pointed. If you will read the report, I think you will be 
greatly pleased with it. It is not only full of interesting 
matter, but it is exceedingly well written. I cannot say 
that I am a general admirer of reports. I usually find, 
when I cannot sleep at night, that a report is one of the 
best things I can take. But this report lacks the soporific 
element altogether, and there are many admirable sentences 
in it worth quoting. I shall quote one or two, perhaps, 
before I have done, as I could not say anything so good 
myself. The spirit of gratitude reigns supreme in the 
hearts of all who have done anything for the Society ; but 
I earnestly hope that you who have not done anything will 
not feel much personal gratitude, but rather feel a little 
shame at not having had a share in that for which the rest 
have a right to be grateful. We will begin by being honest, 
and every man who has contributed his mite will now bless 
and magnify the Lord that there has been a somewhat 
larger harvest. If we have not sown one single grain of 
it, perhaps it were better that repentance should take the 
place of a spirit of gratitude, and that reformation should 


72 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


follow, and that we should begin at once to do something 
for the Master. Yet, even with you there may be gratitude 
that others have done the work if you have not. So we 
will altogether join in praising, and blessing, and magnify- 
ing the Lord that somewhat better has been done this year 
than last year, and that God has smiled upon our work, I 
am grateful for the success of which the report speaks. It 
is a great blessing to have success. Of course we all know 
—at least, all those who have empty chapels know—that 
large congregations are no criterion of success. Large 
numbers of persons added to a Church are no evidence of 
the Divine blessing whatever; in fact, there may be a 
greater blessing resting upon empty pews than upon a full 
house, and if a Church decreases sensibly from year to year, 
that may be only a proof of the high faithfulness of the 
man who would not condescend to a theology so popular 
and so vulgar that it draws the multitude. You know how 
the thing is done. Now I, who do not sympathize with 
that, nevertheless say that I am thankful for success; but 
I feel in my heart a deeper gratitude to God for permission 
to work for Him. I could bow at His feet and bless His 
name if He would only let me be a little ant, and live at 
His feet ; if He only would not crush me, and let me live 
there, and carry grains of sand for Him throughout eternity. 
It seems to me to be one of the highest gifts of His grace 
to be permitted to take any share whatever in His grand 
enterprise of the salvation of the sons of men, and I invite 
you to be grateful to-night that God smiles on our success ; 
and even if there had not been any success, I should invite 
you to be grateful that He’permits you to serve Him, I 
think we lack one evidence of the perfect reconciliation of 
our souls to God until we get to do something for Him. I 
have pictured to my mind sometimes the younger son 
coming home to his father, and his father falling on his 
neck and kissing him, and waking that great festival with 
music and dancing. But I can imagine the father when the 
market-day came round, sending the elder son to market 
to sell the corn and the fat beasts, and the younger son 
being kept at home; and I can suppose the father saying to 
himself, “ I don’t know ; I love my younger son, but I can’t 
trust him. I don’t think it right to put him in any position 
of responsibility as yet.” And I can suppose that might ge 


WORKING WITH GOD. 7 


on for weeks and months, the younger son being always 
kept at home, occupied upon such duties as might be al- 
lotted to him, but never being allowed to do anything that 
required trust, and at last the feeling came in his heart: 
“ My father, I have no doubt, has gone as far in forgiveness 
as he can, but he has not forgotten, and I can see that my 
elder brother is always sent where there is any responsi- 
bility and trust, and my father cannot trust me yet.” I 
think he would feel it in his inmost soul. And it would 
only be at last when his father would entrust him with 
some treasure, some family heirloom, or send him out upon 
some important work, that he would say : “ At length I have 
the child’s place again ; I have got back full into my father’s 
heart, and now I am as dear to him as my eldest brother.” 
Paul seemed to feel something of that kind when he thanked 
God that He had put Him in trust with the Gospel. It 
was the grandest trust that can be given, and He trusted 
such a sinner as Saul of Tarsus with it, and he thanked 
God, saying, “Unto me, who am less than the least of all 
the saints, is this grace given that I should preach amongst 
the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” It becomes 
a token of complete reconciliation when the Lord allows us 
to get to work for Him in that department which is the 
dearest to His heart, which He accounts as the apple of 

His eye, for which, in fact, the Saviour shed His blood. ~ 
Moreover, I do not see how our sense of oneness to Christ 
could ever have been perfected if we had not been per- 
mitted to work for Christ. If He had been pleased to save 
us by His precious blood, and then leave us with nothing 
to do, we should have had fellowship with Christ up to a 
certain point, but (I speak from experience) there is no 
fellowship with Christ that seems to me to be so vivid, so 
real to the soul, as when you get to try and win a soul for 
Him. Oh, when you come to battle with that soul’s diffi- 
culties, to weep for that soul’s hardness; when you come 
to set the arguments of Divine mercy before it, and find 
yourself foiled ; when you are in a very agony of spirit, 
and feel that you could die sooner than that soul should 
perish, then you get to read the heart of Him whose flow- 
ing tears, and bloody sweat, and dying wounds showed 
you how much He loved poor fallen mankind. You must 
have something of this sort to do. The Church wants 


74 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


mission work to lift her up to a proper elevation, in 
which she may begin to know the great heart of Christ 
in the right sense, and to understand something of Him 


who came into the world to seek and to save that which was — 


lost. I felt, when coming here, that I would give any- 
thing to get off the task, because I feel utterly incom- 
petent to deliver a missionary speech; but I question 


whether any man ever spoke in a tone equal to the weight 


or this wondrous subject—missions, the work of evan- 
gelizing the world. Ah, ye orators! if this were a fit theme 
fo. you, you might expend yourselves there. All human 
eloquence and forcible speech might quail before such a 


migh-y subject. I shall not attempt to measure it, but will _ 


say a few words to you on the privilege which God has 
granted to us in allowing us to be co-workers with Him in 
the gati‘ering out of His elect from among mankind, and 
in the ultimate conquest of the entire world for Christ. 
For I believe to this moment in the ultimate win- 
ning of the whole world for Christ. I cannot go in for 
that theory of the ship breaking up out there and cannot 
be saved, and that we have to snatch a few off the wreck. 
It is a most pleasant theory, because it allows one to sleep 
at night, and not be troubled about men’s souls. I like 
nothing that makes me feel easy about my fellow-creatures’ 
souls. I always denounce as error that which operates 
upon my spirit to make me less concerned about the im- 
mediate salvation of my fellow-men. It is a high privilege 
that God has given us to be associated with Him in this 
work. In the creation He made the world alone; yet when 
He put the man into the garden, He bade him dress and 
keep it; there was a little fellowship between man and his 
Maker in creation—not much. Then came redemption, 
and in the payment of that wondrous price by which we 
were redeemed we could have no communion; He must 
pay it all who has (blessed be His name!) paid it all. But 
then in the application of that redemption there is an op- 
portunity given us to have fellowship with Jesus. In the 
telling out of the good news, and in being the instrument 
under God of impressing men’s hearts, the Holy Spirit 
working through us, we are enabled to have most extra- 
ordinary communion with Christ, much closer fellowship 
with Christ than some have ever yet attributed to human 


WORKING WITH GOD. 75 


agency. It is a very wonderful thing that Paul should 
speak of those who were begotten of him, and yet in another 
place should say he travaileth in birth for them; as if, 
taking the two sides of parentage, he became in all respects 
the spiritual parent of men’s souls. It is marvellous to me 
how much God can use us poor creatures, and how won- 
derfully he deigns to put the treasure into the earthen 
vessel, so that if you want the treasure, you must have the 
earthen vessel too. Now, this enterprise of winning the 
world for Christ is looked upon by some with a degree of 
dread, if not of unbelief, because it is so stupendous. Oh, 
sir, it is to me the very charm of the thing. If our Lord 
had said, “My children, purchased with My blood, I will 
give you some little tasks, some easy work to do,” why, 
manhood had never been lifted up as now it is. The world, 
with all its millions to be made to bow before Emanuel’s 
feet through the agency of the Church of God !—the idea 
is marvellous. Lord, what is man that Thou art so mind- 
ful of him as to entrust him with such a work as this? or 
the son of man, that Thou dost so visit him? Truly, Thou 
hast made him lower than the angels; but Thou hast in 
this thing, as well as in many others, in association with 
Thy dear Son, crowned Him with glory and honour. A 
small conflict! It would seem as if God had not trusted 
us with His great heart. But a stupendous work like this 
—a work which involves eternity—a work which takes in 
countless multitudes of men throughout the ages,—to en- 
trust us with this is a wondrous reincarnation of Himself 
in His Church, and a living over again in His people the 
life of soul-winning. I think if Christ had said, “My dear 
children, I trust you with England ; go and evangelize it ; 
take the British Islands, all of them,” I hope by this time 
we should have been at His feet with many tears, and say- 
ing, “ Lord, let us try France ; there are some people across 
in Brittany very like the Welsh. Lord, include them.” 
And I think after a while some bold brother would have 
said, “Gracious Master, let us try all the Latin races. En- 
large our commission; let us go to them.” And if our 
brother Wall had succeeded in Rome, and other mission- 
aries elsewhere, there would be some saying, “Let us pray 
God that as India belongs to Great Britain we may go 
there.” We should always have been asking to have our 


76 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


commission extended, I think, if we loved Him well ; and 
as we do love Him well, (oh, that we loved Him better !) 
let us be glad that the commission is so great; let us go at 
‘the work in His name with all the strength that we have, 
and all the strength that He is prepared to give us. “ But 
the odds are so deadly,” says somebody ; superstition is so 
strong; the wisdom of men stands out so against the 
Gospel, especially in India ; what can we do? Would you 
like the battle to be less mighty than it is? Where is your 
chivalry then? I think God is acting with us something 
like the English king when his son was fighting with the 
French. He felt that he was hardly driven, and he sent a 
messenger to his father to ask for succour. “No,” said the 
king, “he is doing very well, and I won’t mar the victory 
by sending more help; let him fight it out.” Good Lord! 
I would not have the battle of my life made less stern than 
it is. Give me more strength. That is a far better alterna- 
tive. We do not want the sceptic to be less wise: the 
Lord make us to use better “the foolishness of preaching.” 
We do not want the superstition of mankind, as far as we 
are concerned, to be less fierce and strong than it is; nay, 
but let us have greater courage in the blessed Gospel, and 
hold up more light to scare these bats and owls away. A 
thing that might be easily done would not show so much 
of the Divine condescending trustfulness in us. “ But, be- 
hold,” he seems td say, “I will give them this great, this 
stern, this impossible task to do, and I will be with them 
even to the end of the world, and they shall win the victory, 
and great shall be the glory which they shall bring to My 
name.” Let the odds, then, stand as they are, and the diffi- 
culties be as stupendous as they are. “Butoh!” says one, 
“the weary time! Here we have been nearly nineteen 
centuries trying to convert the world.” No, you have not. 
There were years in which missionary work was carried on, 
but there was a long dark night in which nothing was done 
and everything was undone, and Romanism was getting 
darker and blacker, and clouding the light instead of 
spreading it. It is eighty-five years—is it not ?—since 
missionary enterprise began. And then, in the first years, 
how little it was! We have not been long at it. Your 
report says, “ Our Lord has put to a divinely generous use 
the small efforts of His Church.” Iam sure that is true. 


WORKING WITH GOD. 77 


—_—— 


It is little that has been done—very little. And don’t talk 
about time. What are eighty-five years? Little more than 
one man’s lifetime. For such a work we must not begin te 
talk about length of years. “ But where is the promise of 
His coming?” say you. It is where it always was, where 
she faithful rejoice in it; but they are not everlastingly 
quoting it in impatience to complain of Him, or as an ar- 
sument to desist from work or to become unbelieving. He 
will come time enough ; but for my part I will rejoice if 
He comes now: I will rejoice, if I live to see it, if He does 
not come for ten thousand years, because one likes to know 
that Christ gives to His Church now a long trust, a long 
fight, and a long work todo, We shall be in heaven very, 
very soon, (would God that all in this hall might be trans- 
lated to the skies!) and one would like in heaven to have 
something to recollect of what was done here below; and 
if one could have fifty years of service crowded full of work 
for Christ, one might praise the Lord for that, and think 
over the incidents with grateful adoration for ever. The 
Church must have some history as well as her history 
written yonder in a blaze of light for her greatest honour ; 
and the greatest honour she can do her Master comes from 
the history written in blood, and the history written in toil 
and sweat, by her missionaries among the sons of men, 
Somebody has complained of the great expense. My 
friends, this must not be. For who is he that will com- 
plain save only one, who said, “ Wherefore is this waste? 
This ointment might have been given to the poor”? If 
the Lord Jesus had given us an enterprise which might be 
safely carried out without any sacrifice, at the expenditure 
6f a few pence per annum—which seems to me to be the 
notion that some Christian men have of missions—we might 
go on our knees, and say, “ Lord, give us something to do 
that will take up more of our money; Lord, we have no 
room for the alabaster boxes now; we cannot find Thee 
here to break them on Thy head and pour out the sacred 
nard ; we cannot find out what to do.” MHere you see, in 
infinite condescending trustfulness, Christ has given us 
work to do which will take up all the money we have got. 
As much as we can possibly bring can be profitably used 
in this work of the extension of the Master’s kingdom, 
And so let it be. We ought to be glad of it, and thank 


78 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


Him for having given us such a work as this. Oh! what 
a grand scale is that on which God hath made all things 
that hath to do with Christ’s redemption! Sir, I believe 
in immortal souls ; and I believe in redemption from death 
and hell, and a redemption to heaven and eternal glory. 
I believe that interests that will never know an end hang 
upon the preaching of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ ; 

therefore, I thank God that in a work so wonderful as to 
be nothing less than Divine, a work which will want all 
the ages fully to develop it, He has been pleased to as- 
sociate such poor creatures as we are, who, though we are 
poor, are next akin to Deity Himself, for between us and 
God there standeth but that One who is God, and, blessed 
be His Name, He is Man, too! He has lifted up His re- 
deemed people, and now, having made them sons, He bids 
them do the Son’s work, and go forth for the conversion of 
the multitude whom He hath redeemed with His precious 
blood. Oh, that we could rise to the magnitude of the 
scale in which God works, and begin to feel that— 

“ Love so amazing, so Divine, 
Demands our soul, our life, our all.” 

I should like to express my intense satisfaction with the 
missionaries of this society. I feel grateful to know that 
the missionaries rise to a sense of the responsibility that 
God has laid upon them. It has been in my way to meet 
with a good many lately, and to have correspondence with 
some more; and I can mention, too, some missionaries’ 
wives that are worth their weight in gold. There isa work 
doing in Calcutta that shall make the name of my dear 
sister, Mrs. Rouse, famous among women. I bless the Lord 
that there is a Divine, earnest spirit amongst our mission- 
aries, who (if not all yet, such as I know) are the very men 
that ought to be sent out, and they will, God helping them, 
do their work right gloriously. But the Society wants more 
men, and I have been running my eye over all the young 
men here especially, thinking whether I should say to them, 
“In the name of God, thus saith the Lord out of the thick 
darkness wherein He dwelleth, Whom shall I send, and who 
will go for us?” And I pray that the seraphim may touch 
with the live coal from off the altar some lip here, that 
some heart may lead up to the lip, and say, “ Here am I, 
send me,” I hope there are many such. I dream of Carey 


> 


WORKING WITH GOD. 79 


still hammering at the last ; I dream of the village school- 
master still willing to go forth and teach the heathen. I 
dream of boys sitting at the chimney-corner who shall hear 
of what God is doing, and as they grow up shall become 
Marshmans and Knibbs. I pray God it may beso. Pray 
for men, brethren. A man is more precious than the gold 
of Ophir—a man who stands out with consecrated spirit. 
O God, if we had such men! A few more fresh ones, how 
they might stir us all up to do more than we have ever 
dreamed of for the cause of Christ! Well, but we want 
more money, too. Yes, and you have got it. God has 
trusted His Church with money to a wonderful extent. I 
am persuaded that we must rise to a higher style of giving 
before the Lord will ever bless the nations through us 
to any great extent. Was not that well said, that our 
luxuries cost us more than our Lord? Will you think of 
that, some of you? Will you try to see if it is not true? 
Put down any one of your luxuries. Luxuries! Why, 
there are some whose stockings cost them more in a year 
than they ever give to Christ. More is spent on one’s neck 
or foot, more sometimes on one’s little finger, than was 
given in the year for Christ. Some of those diamond rings 
ought to go into the plate to-night. And there are plenty 
of other things we might do for Christ. I hear a brother 
sometimes say that he gives his tithe. And what wonderful 
sums people would give if they gave their tithes punctually 
and regularly for Christ! But I hope there are some of us 
who would never come down to a tithe, or to a half, who 
would not dare to go to our beds if we had not given more 
than half of what God has given to us. A tithe may be 
heavy to a man of one estate ; but to another man it would 
be but a trifle to give away half of what he has. The first 
consideration of a Christian man ought to be, “How much 
can I do for Christ?” He pays his way, of course ; but, 
that being done, he says to himself, “ I must cut down every- 
thing but my Lord. If I belong to Him, and all that I 
have, for Him I must live” “Ah!” you say, “yours is 
Utopian talk.” I know it is for some of you, but it is not 
so for some who, having tasted and tried it, do confess that 
the more they give the more they have ; and, better still, 
they do not glory in having more, since it only brings more 
responsibility ; but it gives them joy and peace to be able 


80 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


to consecrate their substance to their Lord. The heathen 
are perishing! Are you going to accumulate money? The 
heathen are perishing! they are sinking into hell! You 
believe in no higher hope by which they will come out of 
it ; you believe they are lost for ever, at least, most of you; 
and shall the little account of consols be added, or souls be 
saved? Shall you look out for accumulating a fortune, 
getting your name in a corner of the /éustrated London 
News as having died worth so much; or shall souls be 
saved, or, at least, shall your part of the work of conse- 
cration be done towards the work of their salvation? Let 
each man answer for himself—not to-night, but in the quiet 
of his soul before the living God. And, dear friends, we 
must get up higher still in praying about missions. I know 
some men can get anything they like in prayer. Oh, for 
some five hundred Elijahs, each one upon his Carmel, cry- 
ing unto God! and we should soon have the clouds bursting 
with showers. Prayer! Yes, that was the right way to 
begin moving that debt—to pray about it. Oh, for more 
prayer—more constant, incessant mention of the mission 
cause in prayer! and then the blessing will be sure to come. 
Some mention was made of the sovereignty of God, and 
the way in which it crippled some of our forefathers. I 
believe in the sovereignty of God to the very full, and in 
predestination. I believe God appoints us to work with 
all our hearts for Him. I believe in the sovereignty that 
gives to any one of us the opportunity of doing all we can. 
But you know in the old days those very good people that 
were so very sound, though they defended the faith and 
held the fort, storming the fort did not occur to them. 
They were like a pew that I saw in a parish church the 
other day—very high, quite shut out, and spikes all over 
the top—so that no irregular sinner should come in. Now, 
we have got out of that system. We have taken the spikes 
down ; the doors will open, and we invite others in. Well, 
that is a right spirit. God grant that we may keep on with 
it! not giving up precious truth, but having with it a noble 
spirit for the glory of Christ. I meet with some few still 
who are very firm and staunch, and very strong, who do 
not go with any very active effort; and they are like a tree 
that I saw in New Forest some time ago—an iron beech, 
You could not possibly cut it; it would break your knife 


WORKING WITH GOD. 81 


or your axe before you could make a mark upon it. There 
are some few such, but it is a pity to waste knives and axes 
upon them. The thing is to go on to some that can be 
moulded and moved, and I would say to such, “ Dear 
friends, you sometimes say, ‘ Will the heathen be saved if 
we do not send the missionaries?’ I will ask you another 
question, ‘Will you be saved if you do not send out any 
missionaries ?’ because I have very serious doubts about 
whether you will.’ Do not smile. The man that does 
nothing for His Master, will he be saved? The man that 
never cares about the perishing heathen, is he saved? Is 
he like Christ ? If he be not like Christ, and have not the 
spirit of Christ, then he is none of His. “ Well,” says a 
young man, “I have been arguing with myself whether I 
should go.” I will tell you another thing to argue. Take 
it for granted that you ought to go, unless you can prove 
that you should not. Every Christian man is bound to 
give himself to the Master’s work in that department which 
most needs him, and that is foreign missions, unless he can 
prove to his own satisfaction that he ought not, and that 
he has not the gift. I wish that could be learned by our 
men. You want a call to the ministry. I believe that is 
right, but those who can speak well ought rather to try 
and show that they are not bound to preach, and if they 
can show that, they are excused ; but they ought to go 
through that process first. You are bound, brother, unless 
you can show that God in His providence has utterly pre- 
vented you. The other night I started up in such a fright. 
I dreamed that my heart had stopped, and the sweat was 
on my brow. I had my watch on the table by my side, 
and it was very singular that the watch had stopped just 
at that very minute. I suppose my ear missed the tick, 
and had invented the dream that my heart had stopped. 
Ah! I wish that some Christian, whenever he feels that 
works of piety are not being carried on by him, would start 
up in a fright, and say, “Ah! is my heart stopped? After 
all, am I a Christian or not?” “By their fruits ye shall 
know them ”—that is, other people. Don’t you think you 
ought to know yourself very much that way? When you 
are doing no more for Christ, ought you not to question 
whether you love Him? When I was at Mentone, I heard 
that the land before the English came there used to be 
G 


82 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


valued by the number of olive trees on it. That is the way 
to value yourselves, to value the Church—by productive- 
ness. Do you produce anything for Christ. When at 
Marseilles they were putting a fire in my chamber one day 
for my rheumatism, I saw the man putting something in 
the fire-place, and I asked him to let me look at it. It 
was what I thought, vine branches. If a vine branch bear 
no fruit, it is good for nothing. You cannot make it into 
the smallest useful article. Shall a man even hang a pot 
upon the fire thereby? It is good for nothing but to be 
burned if it be not fruitful. The fruitless efforts of a pro- 
fessor of science may have some sort of use; but a fruitless 
Christian is good for nothing. ‘“‘Men gather them, and 
they are cast into the fire, and they are burned.” I began 
with the privilege of working for Christ ; I close with the 
necessity of working for Christ. If you do not bear fruit 
to Him, are you His disciples at all? Can you prove that 
you belong to Him? Salvation is not of works, but sal- 
vation produces works, and such works as those which show 
themselves in our missionary operations. I speak as unto 
wise men. Judge ye what I say. By the dying myriads 
I do beseech you arise to work with Christ for their sal- 
vation. By His blood and wounds, which brought you from 
your own destruction, cease not both to pray and to labour 
until the hymn with which my predecessor finished shall 
be heard all over the world— 


“Jesus shall reign where’er the sun 
Does his successive journeys run.” 


IV. The Jews. Sy Rev. Dr. Moopy Stuart. 


I WOULD call attention to these four things—What others 
are now saying of the Jews, what the Jews are now saying 
of themselves, what they are now saying of us, and what 
we may now think and say and do for them. 

1. What others are saying of the Jews. On this I shall 
read an extract from Scotland, from England, and from 
France. In a number of the Eazuburgh Review we find 
this passage :— 

“The annals of Israel present, and have presented for 


4 
} 
' 
: 


THE JEWS. 83 


forty centuries, a unique phenomenon in history. The 
Jews alone have emerged, living and unchanged, from the 
remotest antiquity to the nineteenth century. Their present 
power and influence in human affairs is perhaps greater 
than ever it was before; and we doubt not, though 
probably in some manner unforeseen by the interpreters of 
prophecy, that the ulterior destinies of the Hebrew people 
will continne to mark their track in the history of mankind.” 
The Jews as a nation have “emerged ;” they have risen in 
our own day out of the depths of contempt and neglect, 
and have come to the surface again. Yet few are struck 
with this change, which an English writer puts in these 
words— 

“Nothing in our time is more remarkable than the 
change in the kind of interest which is taken in the future 
and character of the Hebrew race. For ages Christians 
have had rather an archzological heed of the people who 
were their religious ancestors, and have limited their con- 
cern to the religious books and the ancient doings of a 
nation once the people of God, but who forfeited their 
right by the rejection of Christ, and virtually became 
heathen. Since that fatal act the Jews have been as good 
as dead to a vast majority of the Christian world, and have 
been known only as subjects of persecution and outrage of 
every kind. But all that is strangely changed. The lost 
honour of the Jews has been restored. The persecutions 
have ceased. The Jews are in the high places of trust 
and power—Ministers of Finance, Ministers of Education, 
peers of the realm, mayors of great cities, senators in the 
Assembly, close counsellers of the kings. But so silently 
has this change in the position of the Jewish community 
of late years been brought about, that it seems to have 
attracted very little notice. It has been accepted as a 
matter of course.” ‘* 

Again, a thoughtful French author writes :-— 

“The Jews attract at the present day, to a greater 
degree than at any previous period, the attention of the 
world. The cause of their long melancholy history with 
no vitality is written in the Old and New Testaments. It 
is the mystery of God’s justice—the most remarkable and 
significant of all events recorded in the annals of humanity. 
But with the Jews of our day there has arisen a new 


8&4 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


situation, evidently transitory—they float between the past 
and the future. They do not wish for Christianity ; and 
they pursue with an implacable zeal those few amongst 
them who have believed this revelation. Yet everywhere 
there is, as it were, a shaking of the bones amongst Israelites. 
From every quarter of the globe where they are dispersed 
they are agitating and aspiring after a new order of things. 
The present time is evidently a transitionary state be- 
tween the immobility of the past eighteen centuries and a 
future regeneration, which can only be effected by the 
gospel.” 

2. What the Jews are saying of themselves. They say, 
Jirst, that the present state of religious opinion in this and 
other countries is a loud call to them to be the Lord’s 
“witnesses ;”’ to testify for the God of the Bible against 
materialism and atheism. This call they are constantly 
urging in their publications, and in their sermons, from 
which we quote a single example :— 

“The Rev. Professor Marks preached at the Berkeley 
Street Synagogue from 2 Chronicles xxx., taking into his 
text the address delivered by King Hezekiah on the occa- 
sion of the festival which the Scripture describes as ‘ the 
memorable Passover.’ The preacher said—We move in 
our own times amidst such an extraordinary transition of 
opinion as regards the divine element in the Bible, that we 
Jews require more than ever to be reminded of our sacred 
mission as ‘witnesses of the Lord’ Rationalism and 
positivism were rampant, and the popular scientific liter- 
ature had become so disintegrating and destructive, that it 
employed every artifice of speculation to discredit the idea 
of a revelation of moral truth. Nay, more, it ignored the 
bare conception of a great First Cause, denied the sovereign- 
ty of mind over matter, and treated what we Jews have 
reverenced as Biblical truths as things antecedently and 
intrinsically improbable. Observing, then, on the one 
hand, the credulity and extravagance of Ultramontanism, 
and on the other hand, the open and profane avowal of 
frigid Materialism, did it not seem as if the time were ap- 
proaching when Jews should be reminded, as in the age 
of Hezekiah, that it behoved them especially to be true to 
their mission, and to maintain in the world the Divine 
element of the Bible, as it became ‘the witmesses of the 


THE JEWS. 85 


Lord.’ The Passover should admonish us, as it did our 
ancestors, to be true to our mission, and to maintain, by our 
teachings and by our practices, that faith in the Divine 
Word which is Israel’s heritage; that faith which harmonises 
with an inward revelation ; that faith which alone gives 
a reasonable solution of man’s origin and end.” 

They say vert, that it is not fair to the Jews that 
Christians should condemn them for sins in their character 
which have been burned into them by long ages of ill- 
treatment and persecution by Christians,—the avarice and 
the cunning which were once so associated with the name 
of “ Jew,” and which they own to be characteristic of many 
of their nation. But so far as in these respects they are 
worse than other men, they lay the blame on the treat- 
ment they have received from Christians. Of that treat- 
ment Lord Macaulay said in Parliament that “300 years 
ago the Jews had no legal right to be in England, and 600 
years ago they had no legal right to the teeth in their 
heads.” Of old God said of Israel’s treatment by their 
enemies, “I was but a little angry and they helped forward 
the affliction ;” and this was terribly brought out at the 
time of the Crusades, when their severest persecution 
began, as described in the following extract :— 

“The massacre of the Jews ez masse commenced in the 
Crusades ; in the year 1096 fourteen thousand of them are 
said to have been killed at Mayence. These atrocities 
increased in number and reached their maximum in the 
fourteenth century. It was a common practice to fall 
upon them unawares. If they fled into their synagogues 
or houses, these were set on fire, and those who sought to 
escape were hurled back into the flames. Even magis- 
trates were seen joining or even heading mobs in the per- 
petration of these crimes. The devastation by the black 
death gave rise to a universal persecution of the Jews. 
They were accused of having poisoned the wells, and they 
were put to death amidst the most exquisite tortures. The 
mob called ‘flagellants’ made it its special business to 
fanaticise the multitude against them. A jubilee it was 
thought could not be more fittingly celebrated than by a 
massacre of Jews. The despair to which these unfortu- 
nates were driven is betokened by the circumstance that 
in many places, in order to escape the tortures of their 


86 PLATFORM AIDS--FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


persecutors, they threw themselves into the flames kindled 
for them.” 

In the harsh treatment of the Jews in Roumania the 
old spirit of bitter hatred against them still remained, if 
the following account can be credited :— 

“In a collection of arithmetical problems, given by 
Roumanian teachers to their pupils as exercises in the four 
rules, is the following among other similar questions :—If 
a small town contains 4000 Jewish inhabitants, of whom 
800 are thrown into the Danube and drowned, goo killed, 
and 1000 stabbed during the mé¢ée, how many after a 
thorough pillage will there remain to be hunted down ?” 

This seems incredible at the present day, but it is only 
a faint shadow of the sufferings of Israel in the past. It 
is said that Israel is the only people on the earth which 
treasures up the memory of her calamities and keeps their 
anniversaries. Even the Passover, with its joyful memo- 
ries, was turned into a season of sadness. 

“Naturally this festival should be the most cheerful of 
all celebrated in Israel. And so it was for long centuries 
until the outburst of fanaticism connected it with recollec- 
tions of the saddest and most woeful kind. It was Pass- 
over which the ferocious persecutors of the Jews selected 
by way of preference for those terrible charges known as 
the blood accusations. How often, alas! was the night 
called in Scripture the night of watching transformed into 
a season of restlessness, of unutterable woe and distress, of 
spoliation, torture, and murder. The most cheerful festival 
of the year was looked forward to with trembling and 
terror.” 

The words put into the mouth of the Jew have been 
sadly justified—‘“ Sufferance is the badge of all our tribe; 
no ill luck stirring but what lights on my shoulders; na 
sighs, but of my breathing; no tears, but of my shedding.” 


“Oh! weep for those that wept by Babel’s stream, 
Whose shrines are desolate, whose land ’s a dream ; 
Weep for the harp of Judah’s broken shell ; 

Mourn, where their God hath dwelt the godless dwell. 


And where shall Israel lave their bleeding feet? 
And when shall Zion’s song again seem sweet? 
And Judah’s melody once more rejoice 
The hearts that leap’d before its heavenly voice? 


_— 


THE JEWS. 87 


a. 


© Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast, 
How shall ye flee away and be at rest ? 
The wild dove hath her nest, the fox his cave, 
Mankind their country, Israel but the grave !” 


A Jewish writer says: “It is these persecutions which 
have raised that terrible wall of partition which for cen- 
turies has separated Jew from Christian, has isolated the 
former amidst the teeming multitudes, and has excluded 
him from the current of thought which went on vitalising 
and invigorating the civilized world. It is these persecu- 
tions which have given a twist to the Jewish character, 
and have moulded his feelings and views.” On_ this 
ground the Jews plead that their national character could 
not escape deterioration. They say that the strength of 
the Jewish character is that it does not despair; but that 
the worst parts of their character have been fostered by 
their being debarred from possessing or cultivating lands 
in the country, or engaging in handicrafts in the cities, and 
being shut up to the one resource of traffic; and that 
in trading with their oppressors, it was no wonder if, in 
retaliation, many of them learned to be money-loving, and 
cunning, and even dishonest; but that now when the 
oppression has generally ceased, the national character is 
steadily rising. 

Of themselves the Jews say further that there appears 
to be the dawning of the day that will restore them to the 
land of their fathers. The restoration of Israel to their 
own land is not declared in the New Testament, and is 
not an article of the Christian faith; but it is hard to 
conceive that the promise was given to Israel that in the 
latter day all nations shall sit under their own vine and 
fig-tree, and that Israel alone, of all nations, shall have 
been kept alive only to sit under the strangers’ vine, and 
under a foreign fig-tree. But their restoration to their 
land, though not an article of our creed, must be regarded 
as one of theirs. The Rationalistic Jews in Germany have 
deleted from their service the prayers both for their return 
to the land and for the restoration of the temple; but, to 
give up the idea and the hope of sacrifices in the temple, 
is virtually to abandon the Jewish religion. In Russia the 
old Jewish faith in these and all other respects remains for 
the most part unchanged; but many also of the Jews in 


88 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


England look for their restoration to Palestine, and are 
watching with intense interest what they regard as the 
opening up of their way. But I shall speak of this under 
my next note, which is— 

3. What the Jews are saying of us. First, they speak 
kindly of us as Christians. Last November, regarding 
what they called “the day of intercession,” they wrote :— 

“The 30th of this month will be a red letter day in the 
missionary annals of this country. On that day, at the 
recommendation of the Primate, intercession will be offered 
up by the faithful all over the kingdom and the United 
States for the success of the missions established for 
effecting the conversion of mankind to Christianity. 
Although we Jews may not participate in these prayers, 
yet we may cordially sympathise with their object, for, 
in comparison with the religions professed by so many 
Gentile nations, Christianity shines forth with great splen- 
dour.” 

But ext, as endeavouring to convert them to Chris- 
tianity, they look on us as enemies for the gospel’s sake, 
and they write :— 

“Ours is a time when all religion is endangered. 
Science, divorcing itself from all positive religion, en- 
deavours to drag the intelligence of the civilised world 
after it. Everywhere attacks are made upon revealed 
religion, and even theism is no longer accepted by the 
rank and file of scientists. Materialism or nihilism is the 
common watchword. Is this the time for the Church to 
turn her weapon against a body which has a common 
interest with her, and which in the hour of trial should 
rather be treated as an ally than an enemy? Would it 
not be wiser for Church and synagogue to unite in order 
to repel the common foe and to avert the common 
danger?” They also maintain that “the Jews are now 
more numerous, more influential, better organised, and 
more firmly devoted to their religion than they were 
before the missionaries went to work.” 

This may be true; they have certainly advanced in 
number, influence, and organisation; and a greater devo- 
tion to their own religion is sometimes an indirect fruit of 
Christian zeal on their behalf. But it is also true that a 
large number out of Israel have been gathered into the 


THE JEWS. $9 


Church of Christ, and not a few of them have been exem- 
plary Christians; and our missionaries have often said of 
the Israelites amongst whom they laboured, that they had 
little hope of their conversion to Christianity till they 
saw them become more earnest Jews. And it is likewise 
certain that since the missionaries went to work, there has 
been widely diffused among the Jews, as there never was be- 
fore, a knowledge of Christian doctrine and of our interpre- 
tation of Old Testament texts which, by the blessing of God, 
will prepare the way for the reception of Christ Himself. 
But further, regarding what the Jews are saying of us; 
notwithstanding our efforts for their conversion, which 
they resent, the Jews speak of the British nation as their 
best friends, not only for the liberty they enjoy in our 
land, but also for the value which we set on their Hebrew 
Bible. They partly mistake us in this from misappre- 
hending how fully we regard the Old Testament as the 
foundation of the New, and receive them both as the 
halves of the one Book of God. They hold that the 
_ Hebrew Scriptures are fitted to form heroes, and the 
Greek Scriptures to form martyrs; and they say that in 
our great national struggles for religious and civil liberty 
we laid aside the Sermon on the Mount, and took for our 
watchword “ The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.” We 
hold that the two halves of the Bible are one, and that, if 
we receive the entire book, it will make both heroes and 
martyrs; for “all Scripture is profitable for instruction 
in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, 
throughly furnished unto all good works.” But they respect 
us because we reverence their Bible. In the report on 
your table an account is given of a young Jew in Hungary, 
who expressed unbounded surprise when he learned that 
Christians study the Old Testament and know it well. 
The English Jews are well aware of our esteem for thei: 
Scriptures, and therefore they cannot withhold their 
esteem from us. This is brought out in an interesting 
way in the expression of their hopes for a speedy return 
_ to theirown land. Six months ago their leading periodical, 
. the Jewzsh Chronicle, wrote in these terms :-— 
_ “The dreaded Eastern Question has at last really come 
_ tothe fore. If an immediate solution is pressed, a fierce 
_ struggle must and will ensue. The Turk will not tamely 


90 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MSSSIONS. 


submit to the dismemberment of his dominions. He will 
die hard. And what will be England’s part in this strife? 
Not another Crimean war. She will not risk a second 
time valuable lives and precious treasure, to aid those that 
cannot or will not aid themselves. But one thing England 
must and will do for her self-protection, The nearest way 
to her Indian Empire must remain open to her. She must 
obtain the suzerainty of Egypt, and the sovereignty of 
Syria. And Palestine? Let it fora time remain in the 
keeping of England. It is quite safe in her hands. Let 
it remain in her hands until its savagery has been sub- 
dued, its wastes built up, and it has become fit to be a 
high-road for the nations of the earth. Let it remain in 
the beneficent power of England until a highway is made 
through the desert, and Jerusalem and Cairo be joined by 
an iron path. We have no wish to penetrate into the 
mysteries of the future until Providence be pleased to cast 
another ray into the darkness, and light it up for the next 
step. Sufficient for the day is the good thereof. We can- 
not but follow with the greatest tension the complicated 
movements on the grarid chess-board disclosed before our 
eyes. Our interest is deep in the game. Our fervent 
hope is, if the Turk is to be dispossessed of Syria, that 
England and no other Power will be his heir, It would 
be truly extraordinary if after eight centuries the days of 
the lion-hearted king should come back and an English 
army again tread the soil of Palestine. But as we have 
said, we must patiently await the unfolding of the designs 
of Providence. Thus much, however, we may Say; that 
if Israel is to be indebted toany human agency for the 
realization of her highest hopes, from none would she 
accept this service with greater satisfaction than from the 
Power which of all others in Europe has manifested the 
profoundest veneration for the sacred records entrusted 
to Israel, as also for the holy men who have been instru- 
mental in their composition, and which has in modern 
time exhibited such a warm and sincere interest in her 
fate.” I make this quotation merely to show the feelings 
of the Jews toward Britain, notwithstanding our efforts to 
Christianise them. 

Three weeks ago, after noticing some passing events, 
they write again :— 


THE JEWS. 91 


“There seems to be something providential, by way of 
eminence, in all these coincidences. Devout minds will 
not fail to perceive in this the finger of God. We will not 
pry into the designs of Providence. In due time the veil 
will be lifted and we shall see the fresh developments in 
store for us. At the present moment it appears to us that 
the design Providence seems to work at would be best 
promoted if, in the dissolution of the Turkish Empire, 
which cannot be so far off, England were impelled to 
extend her protecting hand over Syria. No contingency 
would be hailed by the Jewish people with greater satis- 
faction than such a turn of affairs in the East. England 
has given so many proofs of her friendly feeling towards 
the Jewish people that they could not wish to see the land 
of their forefathers under a safer keeping than that of 
Great Britain. Whatever Government is in power, whether 
it be Liberal or Conservative, there is no difference in its 
behaviour to the Jews. And if the English are not the 
brethren of the Jews in the flesh, as is contended by those 
who maintain that the Anglo-Saxons are descended from 
the ten tribes, they certainly act towards them as kinsmen 
in spirit and feeling. We have given expression to our 
heartfelt wishes in this matter. But Providence will, of 
course, go its own way. We must quietly await the dis- 
entanglement of the complications becoming thicker and 
thicker in the East. The solution of the problem cannot 
be delayed much longer.” 

Next, when we cannot speak to themselves face to face, 
let us speak to the Lord on their behalf. Prayer on their 
behalf is increasing, but let it be more earnest and more 
abundant; and especially on their Sabbath, on Friday 
evening or Saturday morning. When they are reading 
their Scriptures let us pray that their eyes ma; be opened, 
to see that “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of pro- 
phecy.” Let us remember them also in their annual day 
of sorrow and confession and supplication, the great day 
of Atonement. Most touching to us is the sight of the 
millions of Israel yearning for reconciliation, yet blind to 
the one reconciling sacrifice, and confessing—“ Sovereign 
of the universe! whilst the holy temple stood, if a man 
sinned he brought an offering and made an atonement ; 
but now because of our iniquities, we have neither sanc- 


92 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


tuary, nor altar, nor offering, nor priest to make atonement 
for us. There is nothing left us but the commemoration 
of them. Oh may that be our expiation.” 

Before the day of Atonement last year they wrote :— 

“In different houses of prayer, in many different and 
distant lands, the same assemblage will be seen, the same 
mingling of sunny youth and snow-crowned age, the same 
blending of all the most opposite types of human character, 
welded together on this day alone of all the year by the 
one magic charm—the yearning for reconciliation. Nothing 
can aid us but our own contrition, our own good re- 
solves; with them we win everything. Before to- 
morrow’s sun shall have set, may we lay our throbbing 
hearts, with all their freight of failings, submissively before 
the All-merciful, and pray for pardon, reconciliation, peace. 
And when the shrill note of the trumpet rings out in the 
evening stillness, it shall be echoed by the Voice which 
speaks as with trumpet sound, in the peaceful hush of the 
soul, its thrice welcome message— Forgiven.’ ” 

How strange to us these words sound in the lips of a 
Jew—“ Pardon, reconciliation, peace.” Oh that they knew 
Him in whom alone they are found. The day of Atone- 
ment falls this year on Thursday, 28th September, and we 
trust that on it Israel will be remembered by many before 
Israel’s God. Let us goto them; let us pray for them; 
and further, let us think of them. Let us think of them in 
whatever is best in their character and aspirations, and 
fitted to draw out our Christian sympathies. In convers- 
ing with Jews, it is very distressing to find how different 
their views are from ours, even where we might expect to 
meet on common ground, such as the conviction of sin, as 
brought out inthe 51st Psalm. But, on the other hand, 
an extract, such as the following, from a Jewish newspaper 
illustrates the Bible quite in the same manner as we should 
illustrate it :— 

“One of the most interesting things in the Holy Land 
is the fact that one meets everywhere in daily life things 
that illustrate the Word of the Eternal. The streets of 
Jerusalem are very narrow, and no one is allowed to go 
out at night without a light. Throw open your lattice in 
the evening and look out, you will see what ‘seem to be 
little stars twinkling on the pavement. You will hear the 


THE JEWS. 93 


clatter of sandals as the late traveller rattles along. As 
the party approaches, you will see that he has a little lamp 
fastened to his foot, to make his step a safe one. Instantly 
the verse comes to your memory, written in that same city 
three thousand years ago, ‘Thy word is a lamp to my feet, 
and a light to my path.” Again, the following sentence 
on the Passover has much in it to strike a chord in our 
hearts :-— 

“Never let us forget that the Passover, which is the 
memorial of the first redemption of our ancestors from the 
bondage of Egypt, is the type of the coming, though long 
delayed, redemption from the bondage of a world of pas- 
sion, sin, and fear—the promised redemption which shall 
bring our people back to the land they won by faith and 
lost in shame.” 

In closing, I would quote a portion of some verses re 
cited by three Hebrew boys in the Stepney Jewish schools. 
They look forward to a Messiah that is to bring peace to 
Israel and to the world, and they are blind to the Messiah 
whom their fathers crucified, and who will bring peace to 
them and to the world only when they look on Him whom 
they have pierced, and mourn because of Him. But the 
Christian’s own first desires for salvation, and many of his 
subsequent desires, are fulfilled far otherwise than his 
hopes, yet they had in them that which ended in salvation 
through a strait gate; and there is much in these verses 
with which we cannot but have a measure of sympathy, 
and they are fitted to draw out a fellow-feeling for Israel. 
Sir Moses Montefiore was present at the examination just 

efore his departure, in his ninetieth year, and for the 
seventh time to the land of his fathers. The schools are 
in the east end of London, and a large number of Hebrew 
parents were present, while there was a brilliant assemblage 
of Jewish gentlemen and ladies, including many represen- 
tatives of the intellect and rank of the Hebrew community. 
The sentiments expressed, and especially the hopes for 
the Messiah, were responded to with raptures of applause, 
and the subject of the verses recalls the memorable words 
of Herder, that Israel’s still uncompleted guidance is the 
grandest poem of all time ”— 


94 PLATFORM AIDS--FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


THE PAST. 
“When I forget thee, O Jerusalem |” 


On distant shores in happier times, 

In sterner days but brighter climes, 

The banner of his Fatherland 

The Few upheld with steady hand ; 

The throne of Judah’s princely line— 

The Temple on the height divine— 

The pleasant homes where wife and child 
Beneath the hallowed roof-tree smiled. 

Oh ! lovely land; blithe, bright, and blest ! 
Sweet cedars capped thy mountains’ crest— 
What laughing fields ! what stately trees ! 
What fragrant myrtles kissed the breeze ! 
The purple grape, the golden grain, 
Decked grassy glade and pleasant plain. 


THE PRESENT. 
“We hung our harps on the willows.” 


Where are thine ancient splendours now ? 
No circlet sits on Judah’s brow ! 

No Temple rears its halls of state; 

No high-born elders throng the gate ; 
No laughing harvests crown the fields, 
No sparkling wine the berry yields, 

No trade-ships in the harbour dance, 
No foeman fears our broken lance. 

The raven flies o’er fields unsown, 

To brood on Judah’s shattered throne ! 
All, all is lost! Alas, no more 

The sounds of life bless Israel’s shore— 
Our harp is on the willow hung, 

All voiceless, tuneless, and unstrung ! 


THE FUTURE. 
“The Sun of Righteousness shall rise.® 


Allis zo¢ lost! In yonder skies 

I see the gleams of hope arise. 

Star of the East ! Thy glimmering ray 
Is brightening ‘‘to the perfect day.” 
Again shall Judah’s flag unfurled 
Wave forth its signals to the world ! 
Again shall cattle crowd the plain— 
Her fields be rich with golden grain— 
Her towns with busy voices ring, 

Her swains rejoice, her maidens sing ! 


AFRICA FOR CHRIST. 95 


See in yon Zas¢ the glowing gleam! 

Faith is not false ; nor hope a dream ! 
MESSIAH, come! Rejoice our eyes ; 

And lo! in yonder Eastern skies 

The “Sun of Righteousness shall rise,” 

And on its healing pinions bear 

Love, Peace, and Joy—for all the world to share. 


V. Africa for Christ. Sy Rev. Dr. Epmonp. 


THIS Society is called upon to rejoice in a certain fact, 
which fact is that God has given it the hardest work to 
do; that it has had put into its hands tasks the most 
onerous ; that it has been sent to lift up the most degraded 
specimens of the human family. Is that a thing to be 
thankful for? I say most emphatically it is, and for many 
reasons. It is more like God’s own work, for it is very 
hard to stoop down to the very lowest. It is His prerog- 
ative to “lift the poor from the dust, and the needy from 
the dunghill, and to set them with princes.” It is His to 
“give power to the faint ”"—ay, and to do more than that, 
“to them that have no might to increase strength.” And, 
therefore, when He sets His Church to this kind of work, 
He honours them by asking them in their own sphere to 
be fellow-workers together with Him. There is another 
reason why I think we should rejoice when we get this 
sort of work in the field of missions. We find a note of 
time given in one of the Psalms that does somewhat, I 
think, enable us to calculate the approach of times and 
seasons which yet the Father keeps in His own hand. It 
is said, “ The time to favour Zion has come, even the set 
time,” and the proof is this, that “Thy servants take 
pleasure in her stones and favour the dust thereof.” When 
her absolute condition of ruin presses on the Church’s 
heart, this Psalm seems to say that the time of favour is at 
hand ; and if the Christian Churches, by such work being 
given to them as this resolution refers to, are turning their 
attention to the lowest position of the human race, 
favouring the very dust thereof, then may we not hope 
that the time to favour us is come—“ the time that Thou 
hast set”? Then, further, in connection with this same 


96 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


= 


thought, see how God honours His Church by giving her 
the opportunity to have faith in Him, and in His truth, not 
reckoning it effete and inept in these days, but as strong 
for the salvation of the human family as ever, and therefore 
we may apply it to-day to the lowest specimens that the 
world can furnish. If there are some who say, “ That is 
well enough for then, but we have outgrown the necessity ; 
we have outgrown the applicability to us of that sort of 
Gospel ”—I cannot concern myself much about any vaunt 
of that kind, while I remember that the only time when 
we read that our Lord was glad at heart it is said that He 
rejoiced in spirit, and said, “I thank Thee, O Father, Lord 
of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things 
from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto 
babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy 
sight.” J pass on, however, to the illustration of the 
general principle which is in the resolution, and which 
interests me—that is, the application of the principle to 
Africa, and to certain missions specified in connection 
with that continent. No thoughtful person in these days 
can have failed to notice by what a singular concurrence 
of forces various causes have conspired to rivet the atten- 
tion of civilized men upon this same continent of Africa. 
I know not from how many quarters the interest has been 
aroused and fed. First of all we have it in consequence 
of the ever memorable work of patient, heroic explorers, 
with Prince Livingstone at their head, and shall I refer to 
the youngest of the band, one who has been lately treading 
in his footsteps, and has come back to tell us what he has 
seen, crossing from séa to sea the African continent? But 
I will not dwell on that. There are many other causes. 
There are political causes that have brought Africa much 
into the foreground. You have had war on the east and war 
on the west. Swift, short wars, thrusting like rapiers into 
the side of the continent ; and if we may regret their dire 
necessity, we may yet, at least, be thankful that England 
has been enabled, in connection with those two wars in 
Abyssinia and Ashantee, to show that when she has 
achieved the purpose for which the sword was drawn, she 
can put it again into the scabbard, and go home with her 
work accomplished. Then we have had the slave trade, 
and slave circylars issued and withdrawn, and issued again ; 


AFRICA FOR CHRIST. 97 


then the purchase of the Suez Canal ; then our interference 
with Egyptian finance, and proposals coming from this 
quarter and from that, that we had better take the whole 
thing in our own hands and end it. Now, though I have no 
sympathy seriously with any such proposal, I cannot but 
say this—that reading an account of the condition of the 
oppressed population in Egypt, I could not but feel that it 
was a lawful thing under God’s good will and supreme wis- 
dom, to pray for the overthrow of a despotism so abomin- 
able. Then we have had grand engineering proposals, and 
I wish them God speed. There is one that seems very feas- 
ible that of joining the two rivers, the Congo and the Zam- 
besi, with a suitable canal, to make them, like the Siamese 
twins, joined by a band made out of their own materials. 
Then there is a grander proposal than that—a proposal to 
fertilise the great desert heart of Africa northwards, and 
turn the Sahara into a new African Eden, by bringing in 
the superfluous water of the great big Atlantic Ocean. 
Only, if they do that, they must be cautious, according to 
a warning that some one has sounded, that if you drown 
the desert so that it can no longer do its work in heating 
the atmosphere, and sending it over the globe, we shall be 
driven out of these islands, and the Houses of Parliament 
will have to be given up to the habitation and gambols of 
polar bears. But then last and best comes a thought of 
missionary work, and this Society, as has been noticed in 
that most singularly eloquent report, has had some of its 
finest trophies in connection with African evangelisation, 
I need say nothing in illustration of that, for you have the 
best illustration on the right hand of the chairman. But I 
would like just so far to diverge from the main track as to 
tell you that it has always been to me a matter for pro- 
found thankfulness that the United Presbyterian Church, 
to which I belong, began her foreign missions among the 
negroes. She went to the West Indian Islands, and 
having gathered together a large number of Christian 
congregations there, there was a certain holy impatience 
on the part of the missionaries to go to Africa and evan- 
gelise the forefathers, so to say, of the slaves in the West 
Indies—to evangelise the territory from which they had 
been stolen. So in Calabar we have established a mission, 
where there has been a work to which allusion has been 
H 


98 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


made. It has checked inhuman practices ; it has abolished 
some hideous customs, and it has given the people, by the 
hand of two of our own missionaries, the Scriptures of the 
Old and New Testaments, in one of the most important 
languages of the Western African continent. Thus Africa 
is coming to the foreground. Now, it pleases me some- 
times to have a little dream. I am fond of little fancies, 
and if you do not approve of mine, you will, perhaps, 
indulge me in the utterance of it. I cannot help feeling, 
sometimes, that in a rough way you may divide the con- 
tinents of the earth among the faculties and powers of the 
human soul. There is. vast Asia, teeming Asia, dreaming 
Asia, splendid Asia; it is the imagination of the soul 
opening a way out into limitless expanses, and beautiful to 
see. And then, clear as her own cold Northern skies, or 
frozen Alpine heights, comes Europe, the intellect of the 
soul, thinking, understanding, beating out theories for the 
use of men. Then, if you will put together the two great 
English-speaking nations—though they be on opposite 
sides of the great ocean; that same ocean severs them 
both from the European continent—strictly speaking they 
are the soul in its grand and impulsive enterprises of 
activity. And as for Africa, it remains to be what its very 
shape seems to suggest—the heart of the world, the heart 
of humanity. Well, if it be so, and God is about to make 
an appeal through His Church especially to the heart of 
humanity—ah ! what blessed results may we not yet hope 
to see when Ethiopia shall stretch out her hands to God, 
and from that basest of kingdoms—Egypt by name— 
God shall bring forth princes of Hisown. I have another 
thought with which I will twine that and then conclude. 
I think no one can look at the present state of missionary 
enterprise and be satisfied altogether with the rate of its 
progress. I am not under-rating it; it would be a very 
foolish thing to estimate results by arithmetical statistics. 
There are certain friths on this island of ours—the Solway 
is one of them—which for a time will appear as if the 
tide were making no progress, and then when it has 
come just to a certain point, not the horseman spurring 
his noble animal to the gallop can keep out of the way 
of the advancing tide. So it may be in moral and spiritual 
things too, but I cannot help thinking that there is some« 


a 


AFRICA FOR CHRIST. 99 


thing waiting that we can hardly gauge by our past 
experiences or hardly conceive of. I read in the 15th 
chapter of Luke three parables, in which there is, in fact, 
a trinity—a three in oneness. I do not doubt at all that 
the Trinity of the blessed God is there indicated; that 
the Shepherd dispensation was that of Jesus closing with 
Calvary, that the Spirit's dispensation is in the second 
parable, and then in the other parable there is a kind 
of distinction from the other two. There is no sending 
into, there is drawing only ; but oh, what potent drawing. 
The prodigal, far away in his destitution, feels the in- 
fluence of his father’s memory and his father’s prayers. 
and he says, “I will arise and go to my father.” I read 
the old prophets, and I see a time certainly coming when 
crowds shall flow to Zion such as were never seen before, 
when the mountain of the Lord shall be established in 
the top of the mountains, and all the nations shall flow 
to it; when the aggressive which we are now prosecuting 
will give place to the attractive. How is it to be brought 
about? He only can tell who knows the times and the 
seasons. It will need no new Saviour, that is settled; it 
will need no new Spirit, that is quite clear; but it may be 
that for the glory of God the Father, there is to be some 
action yet upon the heart of all humanity which will 
glorify the Son and glorify the Spirit, and bring out the 
everlastingly glorious character of Him in whose bosom 
was the fountain of human salvation. If so, then will that 
beautiful parable come to have its fulfilment, and that 
weary, woe-stricken, wretched thing, the human heart, will 
begin to know its own emptiness everywhere, and be ready 
to respond to the gentlest invitation; when the whispers 
of that great old message, breathed into the ear will win 
the response of the yielding heart, and the nations, moved 
on and stirred as humanity was never moved on and 
stirred before, shall rise with one consent and say, “I will 
arise and go to my Father.” Our duty, meanwhile, is 
aggressive, and the more we make it so, the sooner will 
come the attraction, and the easier will be our work in the 
end the more heartily we keep at it now. “God so loved 
the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that who- 
soever believeth in Him should not perish, but have ever- 
lasting life.” Sir, in the text of gold, that text of texts, 


100 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


that amidst a thousand other brilliant texts seems to shine 
like the sun amongst the stars, we have the prototype 
model of our missions. God sent His only begotten Son. 
Mark the scale of the giving, and mark the spirit of it. 
It was love that counted even this cost not too dear. Look 
at the text again, and behold you have the model of our 
missions. What have you to do for Him who so loved 
you that He sent His Son to save you? “Freely ye 
have received, freely give.” There is nothing more aston- 
ishing when’ one reflects on it than our slowness and 
unreadiness to go anywhere, everywhere, to preach the 
Gospel to our perishing fellow-men. To repeat the 
text once more—lo, you have not only now the model 
and the motive, but you have the very message of 
missions to your hand. Let a man but understand the 
text, and make his brethren understand it, and he will gain 
them soul by soul. Christ is the key to all human hearts 
—God’s love to men, God’s love to sinners, God’s love, of 
such tenderness that He gave up the very best He had, 
His own well-beloved Son, that whomsoever believes on 
Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Whisper | 
it if you will, in dying ears. Blow, trumpet, and thunder 
it upon the storms till it surrounds the earth, and let the 
whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and amen. 


VI. Conversion of the World. Sy Dr. M. PunsHow. 


“My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit doth 
rejoice in God my Saviour!” ‘What shall I render unto 
the Lord for all His benefits towards me?” There is a 
constraint upon me, to make my first appearance in this 
hall to-day the expression of the gratitude I feel that I am 
again permitted in my own land to join in the holy 
- solemnities of the missionary anniversary. It is seven 
years since I had this privilege. I feel as if I ought to be 
a more effective advocate of the missionary cause than 
ever, for he wou!d surely be a prejudiced fool who has not 
learnt some lessons by 90,000 miles of travel, and by five 
years’ residence‘on missionary ground. I used to think 
that I valued this Gospel work, and that I believed, as 


CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. ror 


earnestly as I could believe, in its wondrous adaptation ta 
all classes of character and to all conditions of men. But 
highly as I valued the Gospel before, I estimate its worth 
very much more highly to-day. I have seen it exerting 
its influence over the vast continent of America, from the 
Gulf of Georgia on the borders of British Columbia in the 
north, to the Gulf of Mexico in the south ; from Staten 
Island on the Atlantic seaboard, to where the Golden 
Gate opens to the wealth of the Pacific. I have seen it 
leavening the young Dominion of Canada so thoroughly 
that it has made it start upon its existence as a common- 
wealth with fairer moral auspices than any State in the 
history of the world. I have heard from the lips of happy 
‘negroes and Chippewas reclaimed from error not the ex- 
perience merely, but the proclamation as heralds of the 
truth as it is in Jesus. I have watched while a tribe of 
Iroquois Indians have passed through the process of re- 
nouncing Paganism for Popery, and finding that too near 
akin to their former religion, have supplicated—4oo of 
them—for a purer teaching, and have come under the 
influence of our own Missionary Society, and amidst a 
harassing persecution have remained steadfast to the faith 
they have espoused. I have seen Chinamen aroused from 
their apathy of ages, having found the pearl of great price 
in a land where they went blindly only to seek for gold. 
I have seen Japanese princes—shrewd, educated men, of a 
nation proverbially incredulous, and in a former time in- 
veterate in its opposition to the truth—bow their rank and 
their intellect at the feet of Jesus, and ready, if needs be, 
to become confessors of His name. I cannot doubt, there- 
fore, the universal adaptation of the Gospel of Christ ; and 
although in my early life accustomed, perhaps with too 
much boldness, to speak of its triumphs—now that I know 
how it can lift the lowest character, how it can place and 
chasten and subdue the highest culture—now that I have 
seen it as the pioneer of civilisation, the cons¢ervor of 
morals, the destroyer of all evil and pestilent things, the - 
true foundation of states, the individual salvation and 
happiness of men—I rejoice to state it as the firm con- 
viction of my mature manhood, that we have not followed 
a cunningly-devised fable—that we may say of it as David 
said of the sword of Goliath, “There is none like that,” and 


102 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


that we are not deceived when we believe with all the 
fervour of honest and intelligent conviction that this old 
Gospel of ours is the great instrumentality by which the 
Holy Ghost proposes to convert the world to Christ. I 


congratulate you that amidst all these things, with the 


fluctuations of that public opinion which is changeful ever, 
there is still a sound, healthy, confiding, increasing attach- 
ment to the cause in the hearts of those to whom we have 
to look for succour and for help. Sir, I believe in the 
Word of God. I would fain have as my experience, what 
was finely said by a great American preacher, that “he 
was anchored to the Bible, and the anchor never dragged. 

We have a sure word of prophecy, to which we do well to 
take heed. Now I ask, What is the uniform doctrine, so 
to speak, of prophecy? Do not the radiance, the fulness, 
the power of the whole of prophecy centre in this one idea, 
the reign of God over the world? When the seers saw, 
was not this foremost in their vision? When the bard 
sang, had he any other minstrelsy than this? When 
patriarchs dreamed, was not their dream of an empire 
springing out from their loins which should be diffusive in 
its blessing, and which should extend into the very ends 
of the earth? The ultimate theme of the prophets, what 
was it but the £zmgdom of God? Nebuchadnezzar, who 
may be taken as a symbol of the royalties of earth, saw 
something in the visions of the night which troubled him. 
Daniel, interpreting Daniel, who was beloved of the Lord, 
felt no trouble whatever. What was it? “In those days 
and in that time shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom 
which shall never be destroyed.” And the last record of 
the Old Book tells us that the scheme of heaven is accom- 
plished when it is said : “ The kingdoms of this world have 
become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and 
He shall reign for ever”; and then, and not until then, and 
not a moment after then, will the voice from the throne 
declare, “It is done.” Now, that is the uniform doctrine 
of ancient prophecy. Well, come out of the Old Testa- 
ment into the New. You are introduced to Christianity. 
What is it? What is the first announcement of it? It is 
the kingdom of God, which is righteousness, and peace, 
and joy in the Holy Ghost. If that be so, there is nothing 
heyond it. It is not a means to an end, it is the end itself. 


CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. 163 


The dominion of God the Father, through the Son, by the 
Spirit, until God is all in all. Prophecy in the olden time 
said, “I will set my King upon my holy hill of Zion.” 
Christ taking to Himself without ostentation this royalty, 
prays in the days of His flesh: “ Now Father, glorify Thy 
Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee, for Thou hast 
given Him power,’—that is, dominion, government— 
“over all flesh.” John, in the rapt vision of Him, says, 
in the beginning of the Apocalypse, “He is the true and 
faithful witness, the Prince of the kings of the earth ;” 
and the universal worship-song, in which all the convergent 
strains of praise terminate, what is it? “All the creatures 
that were in heaven above, and on the earth beneath, and 
in the sea under the earth, and all that are in them, heard 


_ I saying, Blessing and honour and power and might be 


unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb 
for ever.” If this thought be a true thought, and if the 
establishment of the kingdom of God be the ultimate pur- 
pose of God, and if Christianity perfectly embodied is that 
kingdom, then, as sure as God is God, and as sure as truth 
is truth, we must succeed. True, we see not yet all things 
put under Him. Crime flourishes, honesty starves, kings 
are scornful, nations are rebellious, truth languishes, error 
is crowned, sinners transgress with a high hand under the 
unheedful heaven, men trample upon every Divine restraint 
and upon every Divine charity, and yet the Lord reigneth, 
ever-ruling all things, guiding all things steadily and 
majestically to one ultimate end—the crisis and the 
jubilee of the world. I confess, sir, I like to dwell on this 
thought ; it gives me the most exalted idea of the mis- 
sionary enterprise. With a living Christ realized and a 
Church that depends upon Him, there is sufficient to 
hearten us into confidence and to cause us to put away 
our fears. He lives, and He must reign until He has put 
all enemies under His feet. Sir, I cling to this thought of 
the Kingship of Christ; and I have need to do it in order 
to preserve me from the despondency to which some of 
the tendencies of the age would otherwise sink me. Christ 
lives! But I am not so sure that we are as vigorous in 
our life as we ought to be. I said just now that everything 
was encouraging that you looked upon abroad, but I am 
not so certain that I could have said the same at home. 


104 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


In the presence of subtle and encroaching foes, are we con- 
tending earnestly for the faith which was once delivered te 
the saints? You are evangelising the world—that is your 
aim, your effort—you, the Wesleyan Missionary Society. 
In the course of the last seven years you who are mission- 
ing the world have added 160 missionaries to your stations. 
Popery is missioning England, and in the same time has 
added 200 additional priests in this little island of ours 
alone. Is there not in the midst of us the influence of 
that remarkable family that is mentioned in the Book of 
Numbers, chap. xxvi. 44. Now I have puzzled you, I dare 
say, but if you look you will find it is the family of the 
Jesuites. You can verify the quotation if you like when 
you get home. The spirit of encroachment is the same, 
and it is endeavouring to regain its ascendancy ; the super- 
stition is working in our midst. Ay, and already the 
flush is on the cheek and the vaunt upon the lip in con- 
sequence of victory certain and near. And what are we 
doing? What are the Churches of the land doing? Some 
contemptuously indifferent, and disposed to regard us as 
timid alarmists if we raise the cry of warning. Some 
too intent upon other things to regard the matter for a 
moment; and one, the largest and the wealthiest, harbour- 
ing many of the aliens within her fold. Once and again 
England has been saved by her Christianity, and I hope 
it will be so once more. Unpeered yet amongst the nations 
of the earth, with all its faults, is this little island of ours. 
Her balanced power, her freedom without licence, her 
government without tyranny, her rare jurisprudence, her 
practical philanthropy, and that benevolent Gospel which 
is at the core of all her creeds—when were they born? It 
is very easy for those who have studied history to fix the 
date of her birth. England had no natural advantages 
over any other nation of Europe. Her soil is not any 
more fertile—her climate is infinitely more dismal—the 
sun which is poetically said never to set upon her posses- 
sions, unfortunately very seldom condescends to shine 
upon herself. Why is it, I say, that with no native ad- 
vantages over other nations she has outstripped them all ? 
Ignorance, superstition, and barbarism, how is it that she 
has successfully shaken them off from her as Paul shook 
the viper in the fire? How comes it that when the map 


CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. 10§ 


was in the process of reconstruction, when thrones trembled 
and when kings fled, when all that was venerable and all 
that was novel changed places as in the glass of the 
kaleidoscope—how comes it that England never wavered ; 
and that when the revolutionary deluge submerged so 
many places, she never knew of it except only by the 
spent spray which dashed in harmless anger on her shore ? 
Why, because while France, unhappy France, was drifting 
into infidelity, England stayed herself sublimely on her 
faith and in the principles of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus 
Christ she found her safety and her strength. I have been 
thinking of the last meeting I attended in this place, and 
of the valiant warders who were present at it, but since 
then have been struck silent upon our hill of Zion. Thomas 
Jackson, and John Scott, and William Shaw were upon 
this platform ; Dr. Hoole read the report; Robert Spence 
Hardy gave his first and his last address in Exeter Hall ; 
and the meeting was subdued and warmed, as meetings 
were wont to be, by the godly fervour of Peter M’Owan. 
Then, as the thought came upon me, I did not confine 
myself within the limits of that meeting, but 1 seemed to 
be wandering in the Campo Santo of our Church, and to 
gaze into the graves of others—wise in council, brave in 
self-sacrifice, eloquent in testimony, who since that time 
have gone to their reward. Here is a knot of bony dust, 
where missionaries of Christ are lying, and Male, and Field, 
and Lord, and Burt, and Gostick, and Toyne, and Squance 
await the adoption there. There are the tablets of some 
whose voices have often been heard in this hall in advocacy 
of the missionary cause, and there rose up before me the 
forms of James Dixon and John Hannah, and George 
Brown Macdonald, and Thomas Vasey, and Alexander 
James. Here Wales is weeping over the eloquent Aubrey. 
There Ireland over the astute and trenchant Father Maca- 
fee, and Father Waugh, full of honours and of years; 
Sweden, for the far north, keeps the memory of George 
Scott very fragrant; and France lets its zmmortelles fala 
lovingly upon the turf at Nismes beneath which the clay 
of Emile Cook is resting until the resurrection morn. 
There is something solemnising in losses like these. Only 
seven years’ record! and I could mention numbers of 
names hardly less illustrious. The first thought was, of 


106 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


necessity, “they are gone hence ;” but the second thought 
came speedily to chide it—“ they are gone home” :— 


“We sadly watched the close of all 

Life balanced on a breath, 

We saw upon their features fall 
The awful shade of death ; 

All dark and desolate we were, 
And Nature, murmuring, cried— 

‘Ah, Lord ! if Thou hadst but been here, 
Our brethren had not died.’ 


“But when its glance the memory cast 

On all that grace had done, 

And thought of life-long warfare past, 
And endless victories won, 

Then Faith, prevailing, wiped the tear, 
And looking upward, cried— 

“Ah, Lord! Thou surely hast been here, 
Our brethren have not died.’” 


But these departures that we mourn are to us not a sorrow 


only, but an inspiration. They were borne to the grave 
as brave men bear a comrade-warrior who has fallen in 
the honourable field, each one girding himself in the 
moment of his deepest sadness for other battles in the 
same holy war. And there are multitudes in this hall 
to-day, some just proving their armour, some bearing the 
scars of battle, who are prepared, beside the ashes of their 
fathers and their brethren, to renew their fealty to the 
cause of Christian missions, jealous with a holy jealousy 
lest our burial-ground should become richer than our 
Church. Oh, the sole remedy for all our woes, for all our 
apprehensions, for all our sorrow, is just to come closer to 
Christ—closer to Christ in personal experience, closer to 
Christ in daily communion, closer to Christ in perpetual 
reliance, closer to Christ in importunate prayer, closer to 
Christ in honest and hearty work! When good Dr. Alex- 
ander, of Princeton, in New Jersey, lay a-dying, some one 
came to him, and quoted a passage for his comfort as he 
lay half unconscious—“ I know in whom I have believed !” 
A fire lit up his glazing eye, and the old Christian warrior 
roused himself as if for an utterance of latest testimony, 
and he said to his startled listeners—“ No; I cannot allow 
even a preposition between me and my Saviour; ‘I know 


——— eee 


yr 


WHAT THE GOSPEL HAS DONE IN AFRICA. 103 


whom I have believed!’” Let us get up to that level; 
let the great baptized heart of the Church get up to that 


level of intimate, close, faithful union with Christ, and we 


and our cause are safe! No fear of the confessional then. 
Assuredly those who will not bear an intervening pre- 


‘position will never brook an interfering priest. No fear 


of overweening sorrow then, for we shall remember that 
although God buries His workmen, He carries on His 
work. No fear of relaxed efforts then, for idleness will 
be seen in its hatefulness as a sin against boundless love. 
No fear of straitened means, and empty exchequers, and 
niggard doles, and small-hearted liberalities then, for the 
frost of every heart must melt that is so near the Saviour, 
and men, putting away the large greeds and little givings 
of their childish days, will, like Araunah, “as a king give 
unto the king:” pouring out their treasures as brave 
warriors their blood, and giving, or striving to give, in 
some far-off and reverent manner, after the measure of 
Him who, that we and the world might live, spared not 
His only begotten Son. 


VII. What the Gospel has done in Africa. 
By Rev. Dr. Morrat. 


My dear friends, the object for which we are met is 
certainly one of the grandest that can occupy the mind 
of man. The greatest men that ever trod the earth’s 
surface have been engaged in it; the greatest minds have 


‘been exercised in it; and we have only to look to the 


Lord Jesus Christ when He suffered and died, and became 
the propitiation for the sins of the world, and listen to His 
commission, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the 
gospel to every creature,” to be impressed in our inmost 
hearts with the greatness, the grandeur, and the glory of 
missionary enterprise. You know I have had a long ex- 
perience ; and I wish that wonderful machine was here to 
grind me young again, that I might sally forth once more 
to the missionary field. It is fifty-eight years since I laid 
myself on the missionary altar, and during all that period 
my mind has been undivided in its devotion to the work. 
I have had many opportunities of witnessing what the 


—— 


108 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


gospel can do—that it is indeed the power of God to the 
salvation of man, no matter how ignorant, or degraded, 
or brutal they are. When we remember the obligations 
under which we are laid, when we think of the perishing 
millions who are dying day by day, and when we think of 
the advantages which we possess, living in the light of 
heaven and in the enjoyment of all that can make us and 
others happy, we need to examine ourselves. The claims 
upon us are very great. We know that the Bible is the 
Book of God; we believe that the publication of the 
gospel is the only remedy for this sin-stricken world ; and 
we have innumerable testimonies to prove to us that the 
work of missions is the work of God. It is a solemn 
thought that God in His great mercy has provided a 
salvation for a sinful, rebel world, and that the eternal 
Jehovah who holds the reins of universal empire looks 
down on all of us who bear the Christian name, and 
desires that we should carry the news of that salvation 
throughout the world. Oh, if every one bearing the 
Christian name did his duty as in the presence of God, 
as in the certain prospect of appearing before God, what 
a change would be produced! What an abundance of 
labourers we should find! What numbers would run to 
and fro that knowledge might be increased! What are all 
the sacrifices that we can make? I have had something 
to do with sacrifices and hardships; I have been exposed 
to savage men and beasts of prey; but what are all these 
trifles compared with the great object of saving souls? I 
am ashamed to use the word sacrifice, for what are all the 
sacrifices we can make when we think of the great sacrifice 
made for the sins of the world? But be it remembered 
that whatever we do, be it much or little, in this great 
work, whatever our self-denial, our prayers, our collections, 
our subscriptions, they are all chronicled in heaven, never 
to be forgotten. There is a day coming when the great 
Judge of the earth shall say before an assembled world to 
each one who has laboured for Him, “ Inasmuch as ye did 
it unto these, ye did it unto Me.” Let me refer for a 
moment to what the gospel has done in Africa. It was 
my lot to be appointed to a mission in the interior of 
Southern Africa, among the Bechuana nation. Now, in 
other parts of the world there are, as we know, “gods 


WHAT THE GOSPEL HAS DONE IN AFRICA. 109 


many and lords many”—idols innumerable—but among 
the Bechuanas we could not find the shadow of an idol; 
they had no kind of worship whatever ; there was no altar, 
no priest, nothing of the kind existing among them. They 
are an intelligent, manly race, but the thought of an 
invisible being governing the destinies of this world never 
entered into their minds. The question has been some- 
times asked whether it is easier to convert idolaters or 
those who have no religion at all. In the case of an 
idolater the work of the missionary is to direct the mind 
from one object of reverence to another ; but in the other 
case you have a rock of adamant to deal with. But nothing 
is too hard for the grace of God. Some people in this 
country have thought that fruit ought to be seen after 
the labour of a year or two. I have even heard of 
some who have given up subscribing because there was no 
success attending such and such missions. We have only 
to look at the history of missions to see how long in many 
parts of the world the faith of the servants of Christ has 
been tried. Look at the South Sea Islands. For sixteen 
years we witnessed the sufferings and trials of the mission- 
aries who went there. Look now at the harvest! To such 
an extent has Christianity spread that not long since a 
missionary told me that wishing to bring home an idol or 
two from one of the islands, he could not find one in the 
whole island. It had been said that commerce must pre- 
cede evangelisation. It has been altogether different in 
my experience of Christian missions. Not an individual 
dared to set a foot on those islands before the missionaries 
went there; attempts were made, but the people were 
eaten up by the savages ; it was not until the missionaries 
went and laboured among them that the natives became 
Christianized. It has been the same in the interior of 
Africa. When I went among the Bechuanas I had a 
difficult work to acquire the language without the help of 
grammar or dictionary. I had to pick up the words as I 
best could. Sometimes the people were puzzled as to the 
object I had in view in collecting the words of their 
language as I did. Whenever I heard a new word I 
ascertained its meaning, and wrote it down, On one 
occasion, when my fellow-labourer Hamilton and I were 
féawing wood,a young man asked me to write down a 


tio PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


— 


sentence that contained a word that was strange to m 
and I asked him its meaning. He then told me to ask an 
old woman who was sitting near, who had often helped me 
out of similar difficulties. She could speak a little Dutch, 
and I was familiar with that language. I repeated the 
sentence, and the woman blushed. I knew something was 
wrong, but I asked again. ‘“ Well,” said she, “ you say, ‘I 
want to kiss you.’”” In order to become more familiar with 
the language, I once went into the interior, 150 miles” 
beyond the station, in order not to hear the voice of my 
dear partner or my fellow-labourers speaking English, 
'I remained there a considerable time, and I had great 
difficulty in getting the natives to carry letters for me to 

Mrs. Moffat. They were afraid the letters should speak 
to them. More than once a man has said to me, “ Let me 
put my spear through the letter, and then it will not speak 
to me on the road.” After about nine years’ fruitless labour 
among these people, a blessing was poured out from on 
high. They were first arrested by my preaching to them 
the doctrine of the resurrection, which gave a turn to their 
thoughts, and showed them a dawn of heavenly light. 
Now, men who were formerly startled at a bit of paper, 
who had no idea of God or of futurity, are reading by 
thousands the Word of God in their own language. Our 
missions extend 1,500 or 1,600 miles beyond the Cape of 
Good Hope. We have our principal stations and our 
out-stations ; and there are native preachers who are able 
to “hold forth the Word of Life.” I have seen a fierce - 
warrior, whose hands have been dyed in human blood, | 
give out a hymn, read a chapter, offer a fervent prayer, — 
and press on his countrymen the necessity of repentance 

towards God and faith in Jesus Christ. I have seen men — 
of different tribes who formerly hated each other with 

deadly hatred, and watched for each other’s destruction, 
sitting together at the Lord’s table with tears trickling 
down their cheeks. Yes, my friends, it is wonderful what 
influence the gospel has had on the walk and conversation 
of believers in that country. Let me give you an instance. - 
I knew a chief who ruled over many thousands of men—_ 
a man of great influence. He had witnessed the results — 
produced by the gospel amongst his own people. He 
admired the gospel, but had no idea himself of embracing 


WHAT THE GOSPEL HAS DONE IN AFRICA. 11% 


it On one occasion he heard that two of his sons had 
collected a number of warriors at a distance from head- 
quarters, and had gone forth in order to attack a town. 
Grieved at the intelligence, he ordered his horse, mounted 
it with spear in hand and a tiger skin about his body, and 
away he galloped, taking a shorter road than his sons took 
in order to be before them at the town that they were about 
to pillage. As morning dawned he arrived at the place, and 
saw his two sons within a few hundred yards of him. He 
shouted at the top of his voice. They were petrified, for 
they knew the man. He galloped up to his eldest son, 
sprang from his horse, put his spear in his son’s hand, drew 
aside the tiger skin, and said, “ Plunge that spear into my 
bosom; lay me on the ground, and walk over this body ; 
then go and do what you please, but not till then. We 
are now enjoying the peace that these men from a distant 
land have brought us. We have buried our spear, and 
shall we now take the torch and set fire to the towns 
around us? It shall not be.” Were I to detail to you the 
missionary successes in the interior of Africa, I should keep 
you till to-morrow morning ; and I know that none of you 
have brought your nightcaps. The Bechuana tribes were, 
from time immemorial, engaged in war with each other. 
No tribe dared to visit another; but now they constantly 
interchange visits for the purposes of commerce, and can 
go to any part of the interior without a finger being laid 
upon them. The missionary was, for a long time, considered 
the pest of society. Now he may go where he likes, and 
all the tribes receive him with open arms. The harvest 
is great, but the labourers are few. When, in my sleepless 
hours at night, I think of the obligation of Christians in 
this country to their Saviour, and when I think of how 
far short they fall of what they ought to do, I tremble and 
fear. Were an angel now to come from heaven and cry, 
“In a month or in a week time will be no longer,” how 
earnest would every one be! Let us make the best use 
of the time God has given us. Let us feel identified with 
all that has reference to the Saviour’s glory and the spread 
of His kingdom. Let us not only sing, ‘“ Waft, waft, ye 
winds, His story!” but let us put our hands in our pockets ; © 
let our prayers ascend earnestly to God, and we have His 
assurance that our labour wil not be in vain. 


112 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


VIII. Missions in South Africa. Sy Dr 
LIVINGSTONE. 


I HAVE been behind the scenes. I know something of 
the missionaries, and I know a good deal about the con- 
verts. Some people do not call me a missionary now, 
but I do not care what they think of me if they will only 
grant that I am an honest witness. I have seen the con- 
verts and the missionaries both in South and in West 
Africa, and I have formed a totally different opinion of 
them from that which has been recently put forth to the 
world. I believe that those who talk about either the 
missionaries or the converts as being unworthy know 
nothing about them. I had the pleasure of making the 
acquaintance of a gentleman in South Africa who has had 
an idea, ever since seeing the working of the mission under 
Mr. Moffat, that Mr. Moffat and another missionary there 
are the only missionaries in the whole world. He went 
into a certain town, and was surprised to see no one there; 
but when he got to the centre of the place he found a black 
man preaching to all the inhabitants, and he admits now 
that that black man must be a good fellow. That black 
man you may see figured in a picture that has now become 
pretty common, as standing by a missionary when he was 
bitten by a lion ; he showed himself to be a man of courage 
then, and he has shown himself ever since a brave and 
good Christian man. Ever since then my friend has not 
known how to show me sufficient kindness, simply because 
he saw what I was doing; and I think that any man who 
has seen the missionaries at work, and has talked with the 
converts, will entertain as high an opinion of them as my 
friend. Im my opinion, the missionaries on the West Coast, 
and likewise in South Africa, seeing how often they are cut 
off by disease, and how bravely they hold on to their work, 
only want an air of antiquity thrown over them to decide 
that they are quite equal to the saints and martyrs of old. 
Ever since I was a boy I have heard a great deal about 
the advance of Mohammedanism ; and in my own pretty 
extensive travels I have always been looking out for the 
‘advance of that wave of Mohammedanism which I was led 
to believe would soon spread over the continent of Africa. 
Now, I never happened to meet with a Mohammedan till 


MISSIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA. 113 


two years ago, when I met two Arabs on Lake Nyassa, 
who were very busy slave-traders. They were building an 
Arab vessel to transport slaves across the lake towards the 
east; and they were at the time as busy as they could possi- 
bly be transporting the slaves by means of two boats. One 
of their men understood the Makololo language; I found 
him to be very intelligent, and we could converse readily 
together. I was rather anxious to find out whether he had 
been made a convert. He was the servant of these Arabs, 
who had been there for fourteen years, but this poor fellow 
knew nothing at all about Mohammedanism except that it 
was wrong to eat an animal if its throat was not cut. Why, 
the people knew as much of our religion as that in about 
three weeks after our arrival, for they would not go to hoe 
their garden on Sundays because they were afraid that if 
they did they would have an unlucky crop. All the Mo- 
hammedan proselytism that has come under my own ob- 
servation, and all that I have been able to ascertain about 
their converts, is simply this, that occasionally in the West 
and North of Africa they make forays and capture num- 
bers of people, and sometimes conquer large portions of 
territory. In doing this they gratify their own selfishness ; 
they get slaves, land, and other plunder ; but I find lately, 
on making some inquiries, that the native Christians, the 
men whom our missionaries have converted in West and 
South Africa, and also in the West Indies, contributed up- 
wards of £15,000 annually for the support and spread of 
their faith. In the one case, the Mohammedans gratify their 
selfishness ; in the other, the native Christians make large 
sacrifices for the propagation of their religion. Now, I 
think that the religion which teaches people to deny them- 
selves and to make sacrifices, must be Divine, and, from all 
that I can ascertain, the only religion that makes proselytes 
is the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ. A very interesting 
fact came to my knowledge on the West Coast. I was in 
Sierra Leone in 1848, and a few years previously the con- 
verts there belonging to the Church Missionary Society 
had taken upon themselves the entire cost of the schools, 
and had relieved the Society at home of an annual cost of 
4800. I donot think so much of the converts actually 
made as I do of the leavening process going on throughout 
the whole country. I have had an opportunity of observ- 
I 


114 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


ing this leavening process. Dr. Tidman referred at the © 
beginning of the report to the mission among the subjects 
of Moselekatse. Now, Mr. Moffat had been at the station 
where Moselekatse lives about two months before I reached 
a point up the Zambesi about 200 miles distant; and a 
man came to me one evening and said that he had been to 
that mission, and that the English had come, and that they 
had told Moselekatse not to kill any more people, and that 
he had agreed not to doso. That would be the most 
prominent feature to the natives in Mr. Moffat’s opening of 
that mission, and it shows, I think, that the leaven spreads 
much further than the missionaries sometimes imagine. 
When the slaves are at the public whipping-post,—for they 
have institutions of that kind,—they often call out, when 
undergoing the lash, “Oh for the English! when will the 
English come ?”—making their masters, of course, much 
more angry than they were before; but this again shows 
that the good name which the English have, through 
the missionaries and through the efforts of our Govern- 
ment, extends a very long way inland. Thus the leaven- 
ing process is going on; the men are being prepared for 
much greater advances in Christianity than we shall ever 
see in our day. The converts that I have seen I think to 
be an honour to Christianity ; there are some—as there 
is a good sprinkling among ourselves—who are no better 
than they should be; but when the majority of them are 
compared with the heathen around them—and it is not 
fair to compare them with ourselves at home—I think 
every honest, intelligent witness will admit that the mis- 
sions of the Christian Churches in that country have been 
a great success. The success will be much greater in time 
to come because the work of propagation is now going on 
in every country where we have missionaries ; and in the 
course of time, though not, perhaps, till the days of our 
children, the great avalanche of Christianity will be seen 
spreading over the whole world. 


IX. Indian Missions. Jy Sir W. Murr, K.C.S.I1. 


IT affords me the highest degree of satisfaction, in return- 
ing home after a long residence in India, to see the cause 


INDIAN MISSIONS. 195 


of missions so warmly supported in a great meeting like 
this, and I am sure it must cheer the hearts of missionary 
labourers to perceive that so great an interest is taken by 
the people of England in missionary enterprises. It is a 
source of gratification to me to follow on this platform 
my honoured chief, Lord Northbrook, and I may add my 
witness to what has been said by him that in his private 
capacity he unflinchingly supported the cause of Christi- 
anity in India. .The length of my experience in India 
exceeds that of his lordship. It is now some thirty or forty 
years since I first landed in India. My first experience 
there with regard to mission work was in connection with 
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; but, as 
many of you are aware, in North India there is only a 
small station belonging to that Society, and my experience 
for some time lay chiefly among the missions of the Pres- 
byterian and the Methodist Episcopal bodies of America. 
It is now about thirty-five years since I first had the 
pleasure of becoming acquainted with any of the agents of 
this Society. The first missionary that I knew is a man 
whose name is honoured throughout Protestant Christen- 
dom—Dr. Feinder. It may, perhaps, surprise some of you 
to hear that your Society was indebted for him and some 
other missionaries to Russia. Forty years ago, at least, 
Russia would not tolerate Protestant missionaries in 
Georgia, and hence she expelled them. The Russians are 
very fond of Christianity, but it must be a Christianity of 
their own type. The missionaries of this Society whom I 
have met with in India have all been men of ability and 
devotedness to their work, and men of high character, and 
amongst those who have become most eminent in these 
respects I may mention Dr. Feinder, one of the most vener- 
able missionaries at Benares, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Leipold. 
It is an honour for any Society to possess agents like these. 
It is very much the fashion to say that the missions in 
India had -made no real converts; but those who say that 
cannot have inquired into the facts or visited the mission 
stations as I have done. I have visited the stations at 
Agra, Meerut, Umballa, Scindia, Allahabad, and Benares, 
and have seen a great many of the converts at those places, 
Let me tell you, by way of example, what style of convert 
I have seen at Agra and Allahabad. There are gathered 


116 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


together at each of these places about four or five hundred 
natives who are converts from heathenism to Christianity, 
and if I am asked what is their character, I reply that they 
would compare very favourably indeed with a village with 
the same population in this country. The native Christians 
there are, on the whole, temperate, moral, and respectable, 
and I believe that a large proportion of them have in their 
hearts the essence and the principles of true Christianity. 
While I was in the North-west provinces I had the pleasure 
of giving a grant of land for a village of native Christians, 
and when I left they had for their minister David Mohun, 
who conducts regular services, and who is much respected. 
I know another native Christian who, during the Mutiny 
in 1857, when a young European officer had a sword 
pointed at him by the rebels, encouraged him in his 
distress, he himself being at the same time exposed to great 
peril on account of the sympathy which he manifested for 
a brother Christian. I might also allude to Rumchunder 
of Delhi, who wrote a very interesting work on the Atone- 
ment, and whose abilities obtained for him the post of 
Education Inspector of Putliana. At the court of the 
king of that part of India, he was exposed to great temp- 
tations, which are purposely thrown in the way of native 
Christians at native courts ; but God enabled him to pass 
through them all unscathed, like Daniel at the court of 
Babylon. When I last saw him he had been in the service 
of a native rajah, and had lost his post, not through any 
misconduct, but because his Christian principles led him to 
urge his master to abandon a vice, through continuance in 
which he ultimately lost his life. I say that of such men 
any Missionary Society might well be proud, and that 
nothing but the real principles of Christianity could sustain 
the mind under such circumstances. The success of mis- 
sions is as yet small in the plains of India, but when we 
think of the obstacles which lie in the way of conversion 
to Christianity, when we think of the chains which bind 
Hindoos and Mohammedans to their religion, we cannot 
feel surprised. The position of matters is far less discour- 
aging in the Neilgherries, where caste and the pride of race 
are not predominant. In visiting the country of the 
Santhals, I found thousands of people who had embraced 
Christianity. There I saw in one place a beautiful church, 


. 
: 


as 


PROGRESS. 117 


with a congregation of from 800 to 1,000. The minister 
was a German missionary, and although the mission in that 
part of India had not been in existence more than twelve 
or thirteen years, there were 7,000 converts, 2,000 commun- 
icants, and about the same number of children attending 
the schools. The children in those schools were found by 
my daughter playing just like English children, being in 
this respect very unlike ordinary native children. I see 
nothing to prevent the whole of the Santhal community 
from coming over to Christianity. But what is done to 
bring about that result should be done quickly, because 
the country bordering on that of the hill tribes is occupied 
by the Hindoos, who are gradually creeping up, and if the 
Santhals should become like the Hindoos, the difficulties 
connected with caste will render mission work far more 
difficult than it is at present. Lord Northbrook, after 
visiting the country of the Santhals and the Kols, came 
back with a most glowing idea of the prospects of Christi- 
anity there; and there can be no doubt that if the natives 
generally were converted, they would form, as it were, the 
backbone of Bengal, and stand us in good stead in times 
of danger. I earnestly entreat you, therefore, my friends, 
to send forth more labourers to that part of the Mission 
field. His Grace the Archbishop spoke of the improve- 
ment which has recently taken place in Indian society. 
That improvement is not, I think, due solely to the pre- 
sence of an increased number of Christian ladies, but in a 
great degree also to the improved position of missions. If 
we forget the great spiritual weapon with which God has 
entrusted us, He will cast us off in disgrace; but I pray 
that that spiritual weapon may be more and more wielded 
by this Society, and with greater and greater success, 


X. Progress. Sy Rev. J. A. Macrapyen, D.D. 


THAT traditional Welsh brother, who is said to have made 
so many mistakes, used to say that progress was of three 
kinds. There was progress forward, and there was pro- 
gress backward, and there was progress standing still. 
Well, sometimes there is progress standing still. You 
have seen the canal-boat. It has come for a time to the 
locks, and it was brought to a standstill there. The doof 


118 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS, 


was opened and it slid in. Then the door was shut; the 
door on the other side was opened again, and the water 
came pouring in; and if you were on board the boat, you 
might fancy for the time you were standing still, but really 
every drop of water that was brought into the lock was 
raising the boat, so that by-and-by it came to a higher 
level; and then when it was raised to that higher level, 
the door was thrown open again, and the boat was drawn 
out to pursue its onward course. Just so is it with many 
of the great enterprises that God entrusts to men. Just so 
has it been with the mission work in general. Just so has 
it been with the history of the London Missionary Society. 
Men have been disposed to say that things were standing 
still when in reality there was progress being made; only 
for the time we needed faith to believe that the progress 
was going on. Gradually it began to dawn upon us that 
we were being raised to a higher level. Bless the Lord 
to-day that the higher level has been reached, and that we 
are moving on and that we can see it with sight as well as 
believe it by faith. But it seems to me that this progres- 
sive work of the Society is not a matter in which we are at 
liberty to choose for ourselves. 


“ And in old age when others fade, 
They fruit still forth shall bring 3 
They shall be fat and full of sap, 
And aye be flourishing.” 


Now, dear friends, we are bound to make this progress 
and to take these onward steps for many reasons. For 
one thing, our Lord’s command is certainly as imperative 
upon us as it was eighty years ago. For another thing, 
we have learned by experience that our own self-interest 
demands that we at home shall labour heartily and ear- 
nestly for the advance of this cause. The fact is the 
Churches at home cannot afford to give up the contribu- 
tions to mission effort. It all comes back to us in a 
thousand ways, and we are to-day a thousand times 
stronger and more intelligent and wiser and better Chris- 
tians than if there had been no mission effort during these 
last eighty years. Then we have to remember that this 
is not a cause which lies, so to speak, in the outer court 
of religion. It is not a matter which we are at liberty 


- 
. 
i 
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) 


PROGRESS. rg 


to exercise our own option upon as to whether we shall 
or whether we shall not cultivate a missionary spirit. 
A man cannot be a Christian in any sense worth the 
mame who has not a missionary spirit, and who is not 
prepared to do aggressive work against the great enemy 
of God and man. Why, we commonly say, “To do 
good a man must first of all be good;” but it is also 
true that a man cannot be good without insensibly, 
when he thinks not of it, doing good. Many of you 
may have noticed during the last severe winter in the 
houses that were opposite your own that the house- 
tops one morning were covered with snow. Well, you 
might have removed the snow by sending men to shovel 
it up and pitch it down from the roof of the house to 
the street. I do not suppose that was done in one out 
of a thousand cases. All that you needed was to have 
the servants kindle the fire, to set the family to work, 
to begin the life, and motion, and activity, and brightness, 
and love of domestic life, and insensibly, before you knew 
it, before you had thought of snow at all, the snow had 
melted —it had disappeared. And just so is it, dear 
friends, with the frosts of selfishness, and worldliness, and 
idolatry, and sin. If we could only get Christian men as 
such to exemplify the power, and the love, and the life, 
and the brightness of Christ, many a heart that is sealed 
against all argument, many a spirit that will not respond 
to the Master’s voice, would be compelled to surrender, 
and would gladly say, “ Lord, what wilt Thou have me to 
do?” But there is direct Christian effort involved as well 
in all that Christ calls a man to when he enters into His 
Church. Sometimes I have heard men say, when they 
wanted to excuse themselves from direct personal effort, 
“Why, look at Christ. When the leper wanted to pro- 
claim all that He had done for him, did not Christ forbid 
him?” My invariable answer has been, when the objection 
came to me in that form, “Yes; and you may hold your 
tongue when Christ forbids you to speak, and not till then. 
Until you are prepared to do that, you are not prepared to 
argue for the analogy of the leper.” Why, you have that 
Christian spirit in Paul’s language when he says, “ Woe is 
unto me if I preach not the Gospel.” You have it in 
Peter’s language when he says, “ We must speak the things 


120 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


which we have seen and heard.” You have it in Luther’s 
language when he said, “Here I stand; I can do na 
otherwise ; God help me.” You have it in the martyr’s 
language when he said, “If you cut out my tongue I will 
speak of Christ with my fingers, and if I cannot speak of 
Christ with my fingers I will speak of Him with the linea- 
ments of my face ;” and it is impossible for a man thus to 
be fired with Christian enthusiasm without at once feeling 
that the surplus of energy, the surplus of effort, the surplus 
of sympathy, ought to go right away to the mission-field. 
The woman brings no credit to Christ who goes to a 
prayer-meeting and leaves a pile of stockings undarned at 
home; and the merchant brings no credit to Christ who 
goes up and down preaching sermons and leaves a heap of 
letters unanswered in his office. We must all of us stick 
to the worldly post, as some people call it, to which God 
has appointed us; but whilst honouring Christ in our 
business we must honour Him with our substance, and to 
the utmost of our power; by our sympathy, by our prayers, 
by our efforts, by our contributions, support the men who 
have gone far hence to preach the Gospel to the heathen. 
I do not argue this question from any other point to-day. 
Sometimes, I confess, I feel very cross, and feel very much 
disposed to answer gruffly men who talk against the work 
of our Missionary Society, and who talk against the work 
of our missionaries. Not very long ago I met with some 
such cases as these—men who were prepared to say that 
they thought missionaries ought to go abroad, and ought 
to support themselves, as Paul did, by the labour of their 
hands. The answer to that seems to me very simple, so 
far as an argumentum ad hominem is concerned. If you 
rich, wealthy Christian men who bring that argument are 
prepared to reduce yourselves to the same social level as 
the men to whom Paul preached; if you are prepared to 
sell your pictures, if you are prepared to part with your 
furniture, if you are prepared to give up the appliances of 
comfort and luxury in which you live, so that you are on 
a fair social level with the men whom Paul gathered into 
the Churches which he was called to found ; then I venture 
to say for myself, I venture to say for the ministers at 
home, I venture to say for every missionary in a foreign 
field, we are prepared to take the position which Paul did, 


PROGRESS. 12t 


Rather than that the Gospel should not be preached, we 
are ready to go to the ends of the earth, and wear our 
fingers to the bone that our bodily wants may be sustained. 
But it is unfair and ungenerous in the extreme for men 
who are living at ease and in comfort at home to bring 
such an argument as that when they are not prepared to 
take the other side of the analogy, and so to make things 
level to the circumstances in which Paul’s case would be 
an analogy. But that is not the point which I should like 
to impress upon you, and which I try to impress upon 
myself. Our friends who are labouring abroad are our 
missionaries there, our representatives ; they are doing our 
work ; they are standing in our place; they are accom- 
plishing that work which we are not able to do because 
God in His providence has placed and keeps us here, 
because from external circumstances we are not able to go 
ourselves to preach the Gospel to the heathen ; and I say 
to have a niggardly Christian under such circumstances 
is not simply a crying shame but is a gross impossibility. 
I can understand a man being a niggard, a man who 
gathers all into his own purse and strong box. I can 
understand a man being a Christian, a man who believes 
that as he has freely received, so he freely ought to give ; 
but I cannot understand how, by any process of logic, or 
rhetoric, or any sort of zsm, or any sort of ology, you can 
bring the two things together, and make it possible for the 
existence in the Church of Christ of a niggardly Christian. 
A niggardly Christian is no Christian. He is disloyal to 
Christ, he is recreant to all the promises which he made 

when he undertook the work and service of Christ. 
Brethren, the deepest truth in the question when we pro- 
pose to discuss the opposition and opponents of Christ’s 
work is this: Christ, not Satan, is the Lord and Prince of 

* this world ; God, not the devil, is the King and Ruler 
of men. When he offers the “kingdoms of this world and 
the glory of them,” he is a liar and the truth is not in him. 
They are not his to give. Not Satan, but 


“Jesus shall reign where’er the sun 
Doth his successive journeys run ; 
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore 
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.” 


122 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


XI. The Salvation of Israel. By Rev. Dr. Moopy — 
STUART. 


When we read of three or four baptisms in the course 
of a year, our Christian progress seems extremely slow, — 
but these swell into a goodly number in process of time. 
When I was in Pesth many years ago, I learned there 
had been a hundred Jews, young and old, baptized in 
the name of the Lord Jesus. I addressed about thirty- 
five of them shortly through an interpreter. It was an 
affecting sight to see so many of the children of Abraham ~ 
professing to be followers of Him whom their fathers — 
crucified ; but I shall never forget one young man, about — 
twenty-five years old, who did not speak formally in 
the name of the rest, but gave utterance for himself and 
for them to the irrepressible emotions of his heart. His 
only object seemed to be that of the Samaritan leper, 
who returned and thanked God with a loud voice for his 
recovery. I could not but conclude that that young man — 
had found for himself the pearl of great price, and that he 
still retained the warmth and freshness of his first love. 
While he pressed my hand in both of his, the burden of 
his heart’s outpouring was, “ Thank the friends in Scotland © 
for sending us the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Mr. Moody 
Stuart then gave an account of a visit he had paid to a 
Jewish burying-ground, over which was placed the inscrip- 
tion, “ The house of the living,’ showing that Abraham’s 
children retained a firm hold of Abraham’s faith in the 
resurrection of the dead. He then described a visit he had 
paid to a large diamond factory in the Jewish quarter, with 
all its workmen Jews. The work is so extensive that the 
diamond trade in connection with it is said to give subsis- 
tence to about 10,000 of the Jews in Amsterdam, and the 
skill of the workmen is so noted that some of them were 
sent off to London to polish the Koh-i-noor diamond of 
our Queen. Their knives are diamond chisels, and as hard 
emery powder, which polishes the agate and the sapphire, 
is too soft for their purpose, it gives place to diamond dust. 
The flint cuts the marble, the diamond cuts the flint, and — 
the diamond alone cuts the diamond. But they showed 
us, among their treasures, one stone which there is no 
other stone in the world hard enough to cut, and which 


THE SALVATION OF ISRAEL. 123 


therefore lies there useless. The first thought was to plead 
for one’s self to have the heart of stone taken away ; the 
second was to remember that the heart of the Jew is com- 
pared not merely to stone, but to the adamant stone, or 
the diamond described elsewhere as the “adamant harder 
than flint.” “For they made their hearts an adamant 
stone, lest they should hear the words of the Lord, there- 
fore cometh great wrath from the Lord of hosts.” But 
again, what was this adamant of adamants to look upon— 
this diamond harder than all the diamonds of the earth? 
The Lord said to His prophet, “ Go, get a potter’s earthen 
bottle, and break the bottle in their sight, and say, So will 
I break this people as a potter’s vessel, because they have 
forsaken me.” That adamant stone is believed to be of 
exquisite lustre and of immense value if any man could 
bring forth its hidden beauty. But meanwhile it is so like 
Jeremiah’s broken piece of an earthen bottle that not one 
man in 50,000 would stoop to pick it up from the street. 
It is very like the broken stopper of a bottle of coarse 
green glass, and surely this stone presents a lively image 
of that people in whose charge it rests. A piece of old 
broken pottery that cannot be mended, and whose use on 
this earth is long since passed for ever, is the world’s 
estimate of the Jews, and God Himself said that He would 
make them such in the eyes of men. Yet the same Lord 
God also charges them with making their hearts adamant ; 
and, changing the image, by the same prophet says, “ The 
Lord their God shall save them, and they shall be as the 


_ stones of a crown,”—as the polished sapphire or the ada- 


mant in a royal diadem. When once it has been fairly 
seen that the heart of the Jew is too hard for the hand or 
skill of men, the Lord Himself will take up their case, and 
taking into His own hand, and putting forth His own skill 
upon this despised fragment of a potter’s earthen bottle, 
He will say, “ Thou shalt be called by a new name, which 
the mouth of the Lord shall name; thou shalt be a crown 
of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in 
the hand of thy God.” I shall just read a few sentences 
from a missionary’s letter, relating to a visit paid to a re- 
spectable Jewish family in a village across the Bohemian 
frontier :—“ The colporteur and I arrived about noon, and 
remained till next morning; and literally, from the time I 


124 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


entered the house till eleven at night, I was not suffered to 
be silent five minutes. With L. himself and his daughter, 
I had long and earnest conversation ; the heart of the 
latter is very tender, but Mrs. L. was the person to whom 
I trust the visit was especially blessed. Our colporteur 
contemplated her with wonder as she sat listening to the 
word, and whispered to a neighbour that ‘such things as 
these she had never heard before.’ When I touched on 
the passage, ‘they shall look on Him whom they have 
pierced,’ she asked her husband where that was. He took 
the Hebrew Bible and translated it to her literally from 
the Hebrew. She was much affected, and would seemingly 
have sat up all the night. Next morning she said, ‘I 
think the reason why our fathers did not receive Him was 
that He came as a common man, and not as a prince or in 
the clouds of heaven.’ This led me to explain Isaiah iii. 
Her husband said, ‘It is the truth ; we cannot say a word 
against it. She burst into tears and said, ‘To think that 
we are thus straying and wandering like lost sheep, crying 
and praying, and not knowing whether we are heard, and 
the Messiah is there” Jt was an affecting sight, this 
Israelitish family thus bowing their hearts before the Re- 
deemer. There is still something to forbid water, till the 
Holy Ghost come down with His baptism of fire; but I 
left with a heart full of thankfulness to God, and hope of a 
full blessing through the prayers of God’s people.” With 
regard to the schools at Pesth, they had the interesting fact 
of a large number of Jewish parents, not only sending their 
children to a Christian school, but paying Christian mis- 
sionaries for giving their children an education in which 
the New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ is daily 
taught, explained, and enforced. No doubt their object 
was that their children should get on better in the world ; 
but there must be a wonderful removal of prejudice on the 
part of parents to induce them to go so far. These boys 
and girls would leave school with their prejudices against 
Christianity weakened or removed, or probably turned into 
prepossession in its favour. Now, these children, grown to 
be men and women, read in their Bibles, or hear in their 
synagogues, the 22nd Psalm, the 53rd of Isaiah, or the 
12th of Zechariah, and I think I may venture to say that 
many of them will never all their lives be able to hear the 


CHRISTIAN LITERATURE IN INDIA. 125 


words, “They pierced my hands and my feet,” “He was 
led as a lamb to the slaughter,” “They shall look on me 
whom they have pierced,” without awakening the thought 
of Christ, and Him crucified. 


XII. Christian Literature in India. By Rev. 
J. P. CHown. 


IT was seventy years since Carey, Marshman,and Ward took 
their stand at the meeting of four cross-roads at Serampore, 
where they joined in singing some Christian hymns, and, 
after having done so, distributed copies of those hymns 
among those who were present. That was, he believed, 
the beginning of circulation of Christian literature in 
India. In the course of the year there had been distributed 
a thousand Christian tracts ; at the end of fifteen years the 
number had been increased to nearly a million, and mani- 
fest blessings had followed ; and from the commencement 
of the work up to the present time, ten millions of religious 
tracts and other publications had been circulated in India 
through the influence of this Society. There had been 
many indications of satisfactory progress in the diffusion of 
Christian truth through the medium of tract distribution. 
It was not merely that tracts had been received, but it 
appeared that many natives had come to the missionaries, 
and, flinging themselves at their feet, and embracing their 
knees, had entreated in terms of pathetic supplication that a 
tract might be given tothem. That showed an appreciation 
of the work by those for whom it was intended, which 
could scarcely have been surpassed in any country. Fur- 
ther, not only had tracts been received, not only had many 
of the natives shown an earnest and eager desire to obtain 
them, but great numbers of tracts had been bought, as it 
were, from the poverty of natives. The increase in the 
money received for tracts had for some time past been 
constant and rapid. As regarded the character of the 
publications of that Society he would observe, that as it 
had been said that there was not a village in the country 
from which there was not a road leading to London, so 
there was not a tract of that Society, which did not lead 
the way to Christ. The committee had throughout the 


126 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


— 


Society’s career taken care that the publications should 


always be in harmony with the great keynote which was — 


struck when the Society was founded. At the same time : 


there was great variety in the Society’s works, and he 
liked them also for that. Its publications did a great deal 
in the way of teaching in secular or scientific matters. 
They took the student in botany through the various 
classes of plants, but they also spoke of the Rose of Sharon; 
they taught lessons in geology, but they also pointed to 
the imperishable Rock of Ages; they taught the truths of 
astronomy, and showed how “the heavens declare the glory 
of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork,” but 
they stopped not with material spheres and systems, but 
bore the spirit up to “The Bright and Morning Star,” 
“The Sun of Righteousness,” in whose living beams the 
Society wished to see all men rejoicing. Again, he had 
been struck with the fact that though the publications of 
the Society were good, they were not dull—that they were 
interesting, attractive, and genial. As the poet said of 
“ Divine philosophy,” that it was “not harsh or crabbed, as 
dull fools suppose ;” so it might be said of the publications 
of that Society—that they had a sweet ring about them, 
and that their music was like that which was heard around 
the throne of God. Further, the tracts and books of that 
Society were missionaries, and missionaries of no inferior 
order. They had been reminded that evening that among 
the books sent out was the “ Pilgrim’s Progress.” John 
Bunyan was a missionary in India. He found, too, that 
“Jessica's Prayer” was out there. The living words struck 
like an electric spark from the soul of a Christian woman 
had, it might be hoped, entered the hearts of many of the 
natives, and set them on fire with the truths embodied in 
that little work. He also perceived that Legh Richmond 
was in India, and of course he had with him “The Dairy- 
man’s Daughter.” Although the authors of these works 
had gone to their rest, they were still labouring for Christ 
through the works themselves, and as the missionaries 
preached, these tracts and books were exercising their 
silent power. If missionaries told tales connected with 
religion to the heathen, so did these tracts ; if missionaries 
led the devotions of those who listened to them, and taught 
them songs of Zion, so did these tracts. One tract taught 


GO FORWARD. 127 


_ the hymn, “Shall we gather at the river?” Another taught 
the hymn, “Just as I am, without one plea.” Another, 
_ “The hour of prayer.” It was delightful to think of the silent 
influence which was thus being exercised, and it surely 
became them all to indulge feelings of devout acknowledg- 
ment for the past, and of earnest confidence and anticipation 
for the future. 


XIII. Go Forward. Zy Rev. Dr. Morey Punsnon. 


Two things had struck him in connection with the report: 
they rejoiced, for the first time, he believed, in the annals 
of Methodist missions, in having a station at Lucknow; 
and that there, with the memories of their slaughtered 
countrymen and countrywomen, butchered by heathen 
cruelty, they had been permitted to show them the nobility 
of Christian revenge. The other thought which occurred 
to him in connection with the report was the suggestive 
character of the statement that public discussion had been 
commenced in India. Anything in the world rather than 
the stagnation which did not know a throb! Idols were 
less often and less largely propitiated now with blood than 
formerly ; the priests were not princes now, but jugglers 
and conjurors in their hold upon the people, and if that 
everlasting New Zealander who cropped up so often in 
speeches of all kinds ever did take his seat on the broken 
arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul’s, in 
order to furnish a picture for the Academy, they would at 
least have the consolation of knowing that it was they who 
first taught him to draw. Gotthold, the German, told a 
beautiful fable of a river of which the horses drank, and, after 
having slaked their thirst, trampled it with their feet; but 
the river sped on and the heaven smiled gratefully upon its 
rippling waters, as it flowed through the corn-beds and the 
dwellers upon its banks. So with the missionary cause. 
Captain Burton dared not have gone to Dahomey if the 
missionary had not gone there before him. It was their 
missionary who had opened up the way for European 
civilization and European commerce into those dark and 
benighted regions of the earth, and although those who 
were indebted to the mission for their power to do mischiei 


128 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


turned against it—slaking their thirst and then fouling 
the residue with their feet—onward in calm kindliness, un- 
heeding, should flow the river, and everything should live 
“whither the river cometh.” They were charged with 
failure: failure meant inability to meet one’s engagements; 
now, they had engaged to do nothing except to obey the 
Master. They had not engaged the success; but success 
had been given them, and, comparing the state of the 
mission Churches with those at home, and the description 
given of the Churches of old, he contended that the success 
in the mission field had been as great as of old, and as in 
this country. They had had success in comparison with 
anybody else. Model farming, colonisation, education— 
these were things of which they had often heard as the 
means which were to affect the mighty change. It did not 
appear that the gentlemen who supported missions were but 
bankrupts in originality ; their works would bear comparison 
with those of the discoverers he alluded to; and they 
might go to them, of course modestly, and say, “ Gentle- 
men, it would ill become us to be unmannerly (although 
they call us so) ; we may be pardoned for intruding ourselves 
into your company. We are poor; we are uneducated, 
comparatively uncultured ; we are not members, most of 
us, of the Anthropological Society; we scarcely dare to 
come between the wind and your nobility; we have failed, 
you say; but where are your successes? Where are the 
nations that you have turned about from barbarism to 
civilization ? Where are the garlands that crown the altars 
upon which you have made your votive offerings to the 
Pan of human self-sufficiency? What reason have you to 
sneer at us for the apparent failure of our plans? We have 
written few romances ; we have shot no gorillas ; we love 
life, most of us; but we trust none of us would turn 
Mohammedans to save it. We have not done all we want 
to do, we have not done all we should have done, we have 
not done all we shall do; but, by the grace of God, we 
have done something ; and, hark you! we tell you in the 
face of the world, and to your beard, we have done better 
than you.” Their duty was based upon the command, 
“Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every 
creature.” In the words of Burke, at Bristol, to his con- 
stituents, he would say to them—“ Applaud us when we 


CONCRETE CHRISTIANITY. 12g 


run, cheer us when we fall, console us when we recover, 
but, above all things, let us go on: for God’s sake let us 
go on.” 


XIV. Concrete Christianity. ZBy Rev. Dr. Parker. 


Most of us have to do with concrete Christianity, with 
its history, its facts, its ascertainable effects upon human 
temper ; and we find upon the side of the great argument 
not only relief from the noise and pressure of con- 
troversy and restlessness of self-amending philosophies ; 
but proof upon proof, in happy and endless succession, 
that Christ Jesus is the healer of man ; that to be in Christ 
is to be a new creature, and to be at the cross is to walk 
not after the flesh but after the Spirit. “Where is the 
healed man?” must be the constant cry, and when the 
healed man is produced he must be weighed as part of the 
great argument. In 1832, Charles Darwin took his voyage 
in the Beagle. Coming to Tierra del Fuego, he said: “I 
believe in this extreme part of South America man exists 
in a lower state of improvement than in any other part of 
the world.” Again, he says: “These poor wretches were 
stunted in their growth, their hideous faces bedaubed 
with white paint, their skin filthy and greasy, their hair 
entangled, their voices discordant, their gesticulation 
violent” ; and Darwin, in 1832, pronounced the inhabitants 
of that part of South America all but, if not wholly, 
hopeless. What can Christianity do with a case like that ? 
A little child was found in the streets of Bristol. He was 
taken to the workhouse; found on St. Thomas’s day, he 
was called Thomas; found between two bridges, he was 
called -Bridges—Thomas Bridges. In due time he be- 
came the Rev. Thomas Bridges. He sought to become a 
missionary in South America. He went to Tierra del 
Fuego just as described by Charles Darwin; he studied 
the tones, he gave them shape on paper, he exerted his 
utmost ingenuity in the case, and gave himself night and 
day to the severe labour, till he was able to translate part 
of the Word of God into the language which he had largely 
himself created for the people. He put that word of God 
into their hands, explained it, lived a Christian life amongst 
K 


130 PLATFORM AIDS—FOREIGN MISSIONS. 


them. The people became civilized, Christianized, and 
when the facts were brought to the attention of the great 
traveller and the great naturalist, he sent a donation to the 
Society whose agent had been the means of doing this 
noble work. Beholding the land that was healed he could 
say nothing against it. Our own Admiralty had issued 
orders that English vessels were not to go near that part 
of South America. Intelligence of the Christian result 
was brought to the Admiralty, and the orders were quite 
recently revoked. What did that work? Let us be just; 
let us be decent if we cannot be great—what did the work? 
In the name of simple honour, justice, fairness, we are 
bound to say that this work was undertaken by Christian 
beneficence, was conducted by Christian heroism, and, if 
any one is to be crowned in view of this most glorious 
result, who will deny that the crown is due to Him who 
bowed His sacred head and died, tasting death for every 
man ? 


XV. Gospel Victories. Sy Tue BisHop or CARLISLE, 


THE blessing of God was to be expected to incline to 
the side of doctrinal truth. The victories of the gospel 
in early days were won by the blood of the Lamb and by 
the Word of His testimony. When Paul encountered the 
men of Athens or of Rome, he did not set before them 
rationalism or asceticism; not words of wisdom such as 
man teacheth, but the teaching of the Holy Ghost. When 
Christ was set forth by him it was not in carving of ivory 
and ebony, it was not in gorgeous ceremonialism, but in 
the simple oral teaching of the Word of God. The 
weapons of apostolic warfare were those which recognised 
those two great principles, the value of the atoning blood 
and the sovereignty of the regenerated Spirit. If, leaving 
the victories of apostolic days, we came down to triumphs 
spoken of by the report, the successes obtained in New 
Zealand and Sierra Leone were all obtained by the preach- 
ing of the gospel of Christ, by the exhibition of Jesus 
Christ and Him crucified. The motto of the missionaries 
had been, “ The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but 
mighty to pull down the strongholds of sensualism, of 
sensuousness, and of scepticism.” However dark the day, 


IN 


THE ROOT IDEA OF GOSPEL PROPAGATION. 131 


let men, with David of old, stick to the testimonies of the 
Lord; and thus the only course of safety would also be 
taken. The signs of the time all seemed to point to some 
great on-coming battle. Forces were being gathered 
against the Lord and His Christ, and the day was coming 
when, figuratively speaking, the mountains would be cast 
into the midst of the sea. When that day came, only that 
layman would be safe, only that clerk would be safe, who 
continued true to the fundamental principles of the gospel 
of Christ. Being on the side of Christ, they would be on 
the conqueror’s side. Happy the men who did not look 
upon the weapons used by Romaine, Whitefield, Scott, 
Venn, Simeon, as mere curiosities that might hang up like 
pieces of armour in a hall, but as weapons that were as 
good and true now as they were in the days of old. 


XVI. The Root Idea of Gospel Propagation. 
By Rey. Dr. Cuross. 


IN the course of a sermon on this subject, Dr. Culross 
said: A considerable amount of home mission work is done 
over the country by single Churches and associations in 
their own proper localities ; but when it is all summed up, 
there still remains a great deal that is not overtaken, and 
a wide field for the general Society where the surface is 
merely scratched. He then proceeded to exhibit some of 
the first principles of home mission work, taking for his 
text John i. 41, 42. Andrew first findeth his own brother 
Simon, and saith to him, “We have found the Christ ;” and 
then he brought him to Jesus. In this transaction was to 
be found the root-idea of gospel propagation, whether at 
home or abroad ; and he set forth three lessons. Find, Tell, 
Sring: these three words mark out the line of the Society’s 
work, It is a concerted seeking of the lost, in which we 
keep in intelligent and sympathetic connection with one 
another, and combine our efforts, in order that we may 
bring them to the Saviour. The scope at home for evan- 
gelistic labour was illustrated by an affecting anecdote of 
a gentleman in London whom the preacher lately attended 
on his death-bed. The gospel, as he drank it in, seemed 
altogether new and wonderiul to him ; when told about the 


132 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 


magnificence of Divine grace, he exclaimed, “Do the 
people of London know that ?” There was a church at the 
end of his street, glorious in its Gothic architecture, with 
saints in its stained-glass windows ; Christian men had 
met him in business week after week ; and yet the story of 
the holy Love was as strange to him as if he had spent his 
life in Central Africa. There, then, in green and quiet 
country villages, and in our great cities, beneath the shadow 
of our steeples, is field enough for such a Society as this, 
to seek our brother and bring him to Jesus. In one of the 
closing passages of his discourse, Dr. Culross set forth the 
aim of the Society to have each convert and member of the 
the mission-church a missionary. The Christian is not a 
marble statue chiselled by a Divine Sculptor to show his 
skill; but a fresh and living force thrown into the battle 
of Jesus Christ. 


Il]. BIBLE DISTRIBUTION 
L The Word of God. Sy THE Very Rev. DEAN CLOsE. 


IT was in the winter of 1812 that I became a collector of 
a penny a week for the British and Foreign Bible Society, 
under the direction of the eldest son of Bible Scott, and 
the lesson which he often imparted to me I have never 
forgotten. I may truly say that from boyhood to youth, 
and from youth to manhood, and from manhood to old 
age, I have ever loved and never deserted, and never failed 
to support, to my utmost ability, this glorious and blessed 
institution. I have supported it in fair weather and in 
foul. There have been occasions, in past years, when 
I was very much more frequently able to attend your 
great anniversaries, when this room was not more than 
two-thirds full, if so much. Division and strife, always the 
curse of the Christian Church, had found its way even into 
the bosom of this benevolent and Christian society, and 
hence falling off, and weakness of heart. But there was 
something in her which I shall endeavour to show before 
I sit down that prevented the good ship from foundering. 
And now I come before you after the lapse of years, feeling 


THE WORD OF GOD. 133 


differently from what you, my lord,! must feel, who have 
presided here, year after year, for twenty-five years, and 
God grant you may be spared much longer. You are inured 
to the changes and fluctuations of this society. I live in 
a far country, in North Britain, according to the direc- 
tion on many of my letters, far away from the influence 
of these great anniversaries, and I have been little able 
to attend them, and therefore I regard them from a 
different standpoint to that from which your lordship will 
regard them, and they strike me as most wonderful in- 
stances of Divine Providence. I speak here not merely 
of this great institution, but of all its kindred institutions, 
and I express it as my deep conviction, from long obser- 
vation, that the persistency of these institutions, their 
consistency in their work, their gradual increase in all 
their proportions and all their usefulness, is a constant 
miracle and evidence of the truth of God in an evil and 
sinful age. There is one text in the Scripture which 
appears to me to describe in three lines the remarkable 
position of the Christian world at the present moment— 
“They shall fear the name of the Lord from the West.” 
When that was written, and when the Gospel was first 
propagated, the pillars of Hercules formed the West ; but 
now beyond those, and far across the Atlantic, another 
world exists, and they fear the Lord from Western America, 
And a fifth quarter of the world, if I were not using an 
Irishism, the great country of Australia, has come amongst 
us. ‘They shall also glorify the Lord from the rising of 
the sun.” I do not know where the sun rose then, but it 
seems now to rise very much further east than it did in 
those days, and it shines upon vast countries then unknown. 
Here, I say, is an expression of the wide diffusion of the 
Gospel, both written and spoken, and I affirm it constantly 
that since Christ came into the world there never was 
anything like the present diffusion of the Gospel. The 
miracle of Pentecost was a trifle compared with the miracle 
of the Bible Society that speaks in 220 languages. I 
wonder how many there were at Pentecost—very few 
indeed, comparing, I say, the work of God then and now; 


1 The speech was delivered in Exeter Hall, and the meeting was 
presided over by the late Lord Shaftesbury. 


234 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 


it is most wonderful, and the fact cannot be denied. I am 
not speaking of its success, or of the number of conversions, 
but of the extraordinary historical fact that if you take a 
map of the world and put a red cross wherever the Bible 
is, and wherever the missionary is, you will have a reflec- 
tion like the starry heavens, although there may be a 
deep-dark sky beyond. This, then, is one remarkable 
feature ; but my text goes on to say that when this great 
diffusion takes place “The enemy shall come in like a 
flood ;” and you will agree with mein that. The enemy 
does come in upon us undoubtedly like a flood, whether 
it be in the wild and boisterous waves of a mountain sea 
coming over tremendously to deluge us with noise and 
tempest and storm, as I might say in the violence and 
boisterousness and drunkenness which threaten to deluge 
the land,—may I not say licensed drunkenness ?—and 
prostitution—must I say licensed prostitution ?—fearful 
things! And these are evils which in Scripture lan- 
guage are like the troubled sea when it casts up mire and 
dirt. But there is such a thing as a still flood, like the 
solemn rising of your Thames, calm and tranquil ; but how 
they watch its rise inch by inch! A few more inches, and 
the calm flood shall deluge 10,000 houses and destroy 
on every side. So we have the deluge of infidelity and 
the deluge of superstition quietly creeping into our houses, 
stealing our families and our children; one stolen off te 
infidelity and another to the lies of the apostate Church 
of Rome, and thus it is that there is unquestionably an 
enemy, the devil. Men may deny his very existence; he 
holds them fast, and then they say, “There is no such 
thing as a devil at all; we do not believe a word of it.” 
But I say he thus comes in like a flood. But what then? 
“The Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against 
him.” I believe the history of the world from the days of 
Paradise until now will tell the same story, that whenever 
the Spirit of the Lord is upon the earth, whenever the 
people of God rise to their duties, then the devil stirs up 
his people either to direful opposition or to work side by 
side. Now as this is the case, I believe, looking from 
that standpoint of forty, fifty, or sixty years ago, the 
great Pilot of the Christian Church foresaw this great, 
direful flood that was coming in, and put His Spirit intc 


THE WORD OF GOD. 135 


the hearts of little bands of men here and there at the 
close of the last century, and the beginning of this, to pray 
and think, “What can we do for the glory of God? how 
can we circulate His Word? how can we send out mis- 
sionaries?” They did not know what they were doing, 
but they were doing a great work, and they have done a 
great work, and God has blessed that work. But that 
work has done muchmore. I believe that every missionary 
society, every Bible society, every evangelical society of 
every kind, is the Spirit of the Lord lifting up a standard 
here at home to drive back infidelity and superstition. 
When we are working for this Society, and circulating the 
Bible in lands and languages, the names of which I should 
be very sorry to attempt to pronounce, and when we are 
having statistics and figures, which I have abhorred from 
my school days even to the present moment; and when 
we read of these great many Bibles and great many 
missionaries, we think we are only sending Bibles or send- 
ing missionaries to Russia and I know not where; but we 
are planting the standard of God’s truth to defend us at 
home, and to save us from the incursions of infidelity and 
superstition. But to return to our own Society for a 
moment. I said that I had stood by her in fair weather 
and foul, and she has had some very foul weather, and 
received some very heavy shocks. I may mention, for 
instance, when I was young the wiseacres used to say, 
“Oh, those poor fellows at Exeter Hall; let them alone ; 
they will talk themselves quiet, and soon be tired; the 
thing will evaporate, and it is all momentary superstition ;” 
but fifty, sixty, seventy years have gone on, and I find this 
big room as full as ever of men with hearts and hands 
determined to promote the glory of God—and notwith- 
standing this Bible Society has been so nearly lost, and 
had such bad weather, I see her not only righted, but fully 
equipped, and she is now laden with this Word of God in 
all languages and tongues ; she is going down channel 
with every stitch of sail set, with her stun’sails out and 
the breath of heaven wafting her, and I am sure, despite 
Mr. Plimsoll, with a deck cargo, and all crowded upon her 
deck ; and above her floats, I will not say the Royal or 
Imperial standard, but I will say the standard of the Lord 
of Hosts, the flag which He flies, and under which flag 


136 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 


there must eventually be victory. But, allow me for a 
moment to ask the question, what is the cause of this 
great success, especially of the British and Foreign Bible 
Society? I daresay very few of you have looked as you 
ought to do into the big book of the report. Why, it isa 
volume! I cannot read it a quarter through; I have not 
time to do so; but I skimmed it over, and what a wonder- 
ful report it is! What extraordinary facts are produced ! 
And then we come to another wonderful thing. Where 
does all the money come from? When I go round the 
country I hear very few people talking about the poor old 
Bible Society. It is preached for in fewer pulpits than 
any other society I know of, but yet it does not fail—nay, 
it increases. And it is, as it ought to be, the parent society 
of all societies, and takes the lead in money matters as in 
everything else. But what is your strength? Where is 
it? No doubt there have been great skill, great learning, 
deep piety, and many prayers—I would not undervalue 
human agency—and I confess, as an old friend of this 
Society, I felt a little proud—I do not know whether it 
was right or wrong—when the /teratz and savanus could 
not find what they wanted in the Bodleian Library, or the 
libraries of Oxford, or the British Museum, and were ob- 
liged to come to the depdt of the British and Foreign 
Bible Society. There must be some learning, there must 
be something worth looking at, when the scientific con- 
descend to visit our stores. Yes; I rejoice, and I believe 
that all the best of human learning and human piety has 
been devoted to this great work of translating and circu- 
lating the Word of God. But even this is not the reason 
of your success. Why has not your ship sunk under these 
storms? It is because. of the cargo which she hears ; 
it is because she bears the Word of the living God and 
the truth of God, and the ship swims because of her 
cargo. You recollect many of those Northern timber 
ships ; they suffer tremendously in bad weather, and some- 
times they have all their crew swept off their decks ; but 
they cannot sink, because they are laden with timber ; and 
so it is with the Bible Society. Beat her as you will, abuse 
her as you may, find fault with her as you choose, she will 
swim in spite of all, because she has the cargo of the Word 
of the living God! And what is that cargo? Let me be 


THE WORD OF GOD. 137 


a Custom House officer for a while, and go and examine 


the cargo of this ship. Perhaps you will tell me it is a 


very old story, a very old Book, that you all know what it 
_is—the Bible. Yes. What isthe Bible? God’s written 


Word, or, as we call it in the Church of England, God’s 


Word written. I do not like that definition altogether. 


It is true, but not the whole truth by a great deal, and it 


is a definition which some are disposed to take advantage 


of. There are some folks amongst ourselves who sneer at 


_ the written Word, and they say, “ Oh, the world will never 


_be converted by a book; it was not the written Word that 


the apostles and the prophets and our Lord circulated, but 
it was the voice of man that did it.” Some folks build 
that pyramid with the apex downwards in my judgment ; 


_ they put the Bible upon the Church, instead of the Church 


A 
_ by the voice of man and not by the Word?” They found 


( 


upon the Bible. But that is not the Protestant or the 


_ Article view of it. I say to those who advance that argu- 


ment, “ How do you find out that the Gospel was circulated 


it in the Bible. They would never have known anything 


about it if it had not been there; and what they know 


beyond that I do not care much about or have much 


respect for. Here we come to the grand point—the view 
that you take of this blessed Book, what is it? It is not 


{ i 


merely and simply the written Word of God. The Epistles 
and the New Testament are the written Word of God. 


_ Perhaps the Proverbs, the Song of Solomon, and Ecclesi- 


astes are the written Word of God, but the rest of the 
Bible is not the written Word of God. It was all spoken 


before it was written. It is the record of the oral Word 


of God inallages. Our Lord speaks of it, and echoes back 
the Old Testament, “ Every word that proceedeth out of 


the mouth of the Lord.” That is not written—it is spoken. 


And I look at the source of this, and see it magnificently 
exhibiting the idea. Amidst the thunders and earthquakes, 


and sounds, and sights of Sinai, it is there said, “God 
“spake all these words ”—with a voice that made the nations 
hhear—and when He had spoken them He wrote them, 


wrote them twice with His own finger on tables of stone. 
It was first spoken, and then written. And that is the 


history of the great bulk of this blessed Book. It is the 


written record of what God said to Adam and Eve in 


138 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 


Paradise ; what God said to Abraham in the dark and 
thick night ; what He whispered in the ear of Jacob whe 
He wrestled with him; what He spake to Moses eigh 
days and nights on that Mount. It was all spoken befor 
it was written. And the prophecies of God, they were al 
spoken before they were written. It is the record of what 
was spoken. And the beautiful Psalms—what do yo 
think of them? Were they spoken? No; they were 
prayed and poured out from the voice of the penitent 
believer ; they were said, they were sung; I do not know 
whether they were intoned until modern times—that I 
cannot answer for; but I am certain they were said, and 
sung, and prayed, and then they were recorded by the 
Spirit of God in the Book for your edification and mine. 
And what are the Gospels? What are the Acts of the 
Apostles? Are they merely writings written from God to 
us? No, they are the records of the very voice, and word, 
and action of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, so that when © 
you hear this Book read, you hear the very words of the- 
Lord Jesus Christ Himself. This gives me an idea of the 
dignity and power of this Word that I never gained till I 
saw it. It seems to me a kind of double inspiration. I 
have no longer to quibble about the degree of inspiration — 
of this or that, but I have this first of all as our blessed 
Lord said Himself. “Holy men of old,” as the apostle, 
“spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” They 
all spoke. Yes, it is the oral tradition of the Church of 
the living God recorded by a Divine reporter for our 
edification to the end of time. Therefore it is that this 
Society is as prosperous as it is; therefore it is that I feel, 
in my departing address to you,—it may possibly be my 
last—it will be my comfort and consolation that though 
one generation of advocates pass away, another will rise 
up. I feel almost to-day as if I was the last of a special 
race. Your fathers, where are they? Where, where are 
the men who for years and years pleaded with you in this” 
room? Where are the mighty dead who have died in the 
Lord? They are gone. I believe few in this room will 
equal even myself in age, and in devotion to your Society. 
They are passed away, but I bless God that there are 
young men rising up among you, and I have no fear for 
God’s cause nor for His word. His glory is wrapt up in 


THE SILENCE OF THE BIBLE. 139 


it. Do you but circulate His pure and unadulterated word, 
and the Lord will bless it to the salvation of His people, 
and the gathering together of His Church. I pray God to 
pour His abundant blessing on you all. My friends, I 
pray for you sincerely. You have had great advantages 
in London since I knew it; you have been roused and 
stirred up by American piety from far lands. The spirit 
of the Lord is there, It is all working to oppose the power 
and dominion of Satan, and I pray God that you may 
know the day of your visitation, and that every man, 
woman, and child here present to-day representing an 
interest in the circulation of the Scriptures, may represent 
a witness and a testimony to the power of the Word in 
their own souls, that they may feed upon it day and night. 
As an old man, now long experienced, I can say to you 
that the longer you study, and the deeper you study, and 
the more you pray over that Blessed Word, the more rich 
discoveries you will make of God’s grace. Instead of its 
being a stale or a dry book, or a heavy work, the light 
shines brighter and brighter on every page; and when you 
want it most, when your flesh and your heart fail, and those 
around you fail, you will find God the strength of your 
heart, and your portion for ever. 


II. The Silence of the Bible. By Dr. Mortey 
PUNSHON. 


_ A SENTENCE of Archbishop Trench’s has been ringing in 
my ears repeatedly this morning. In one of his Hulsean 
Lectures, I think, he says something like this: “That it 
was observed by one wise man to another that his ques- 
tions taught more than other people’s answers;” and he 
refers back, if I remember rightly, to the Scripture in this 
aspect of it: “That the silence of Scripture is often more 
instructive than the teaching of other books.” Now that 
silence, as it appears to me, may not be inaptly quoted as 
an evidence of the Scriptures’ inspiration. It is silent, not 
by inadvertence ; it is silent by design. The same spirit 
which prompted the writers to write withheld the writers 
from writing when the Lord did not will the inspiration. 
And so it is true, as Boyle says, that the Scripture is like 


140 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 


a dial in which we are informed by the shadow as well ag 
the light ; and, again, in the words of the lamented Archer 
Butler, “ What we see is holy; but what we see not is holier 
still.” It is the glory of God, we are told, to conceal a mat- 
ter. And sometimes to repress an unhallowed curiosity, © 
and sometimes to exercise His people’s faith, and some-— 
times to vindicate His own prerogative, and sometimes— — 
nay, always—to evolve His own plans into clearer and . 
grander harmony, God mingles obscurity and brightness ~ 
in the revelation of His will. There is no obscurity, mark ~ 
you, upon the matters that concern salvation. They are — 
all as clear as the morning. There is no theorising upon — 
truth. In the Scripture, truth is dogmatically asserted. — 
We do not get hold of the processes in which the results 
are arrived at; we do not see the reasons of things as © 
they present themselves to the Divine mind. And if it 
be God’s Word, it must be so. If it be God’s Word, we 
must take it because God says it, and we must not be 
disposed to seek out irreverently what it is His pleasure to 
hide. Human silence, you know, may be broken by human 
tests. It is recorded that when the oracles of old were 
rather chary of response, Alexander politely compelled the © 
priestess to the tripod and made her speak. And on 
another occasion, when the blood of St. Januarius did not — 
liquefy as it ought to have done—when the priests were ~ 
either unable or unwilling (I give them the choice of the — 
dilemma)—a message came from one whose position gave © 
him power, that it must liquefy in half an hour or the high : 
priest should be hanged. But in spite of royal will, and in — 
spite of military insolence, the silence of the Scripture re- 
mains inviolate. The seal of that silence cannot possibly © 
be broken by the touch of any human hand, and it is note- © 
worthy—and I shall come to my point very shortly (I do 
not know that I am very far from it now)—it is noteworthy 
that the subjects upon which Scripture is silent are pre- 
cisely the same subjects where irreverent curiosity would 
fain probe to the uttermost, and where speculations have 
been multiplied almost without end. Weask about the 
creation of the world ; it is dismissed in a sentence, almost © 
in a word. We ask about the angels—those vast and 
lofty intelligences who are so powerful for good or evil. 
We do not know much about them from the Word. 


siete 


THE SILENCE OF THE BIBLE. 141 


We ask about the existence of other worlds; we would fain 
know something of the conditions under which they 
_ live—whether there is sin among them— 


“ Whether they have felt above, 
Redeeming grace and dying love.” 


We know nothing about it from the Word. We ask in 
reference to the origin of evil; we find scars upon the 
earth ; a sickly and wailing child, volcano and pestilence, 
tyranny and wrong; and if God be God, and if He be love, 
and if He be pure, whence? why? Scripture is silent. It 
is more concern to discover the remedy than to account for 
the disease. We ask about the dead. What are the con- 
ditions of their existence in the world to which they are 
gone on, and in that paradise which is but a suburb of 
heaven? We do not know; the Word is silent. Who, 
awed by the loving ministry of the Lord Jesus, and loving 
Him intensely, as I trust we are getting to do as a 
personal Christ—as a personal Redeemer—who of us has 
not wondered what He was like? We know all about 
heroes. We know all about poets and artists. Every 
great man who is noteworthy enough to live in memory at 
all—either the pen or the pencil has brought him before 
us to the very buckskin, or to a ribbon. Many painters 
have essayed to paint Christ ; but then it is left to the 
imagination entirely. Raphael, and Correggio, and Caracci 
can give us no light, nor Matthew, nor Mark, nor John. 
Nay, Luke even,—for he was, as a tradition says, painter 
as well as physician—has not essayed to draw for us upon 


canvas the features of the Master whom he loved. Now, 


mark where Scripture is silent, and where Scripture speaks; 
silent upon matters that are subordinate—rich with a 
speaking fulness upon matters that are supreme, silent 
where irreverent curiosity would probe or arrant fancy 
would wander; abundant in its revelation where the in- 
tellect thirsts for knowledge and where the hunger of heart 
would be satisfied with the fulness of the Word ; rich in its 
proclamation of everything that can Jead the tottering steps 
of a wayfaring man to Jesus ; abundant in its revelation of 
the one way to God and of the honours that are to be given 
to the Redeemer and to the Holy Spirit in the salvation of 
sinners ; free and unrestricted in its offers of mercy, and 


142 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 


with such a power in its words that the lame man leaps ag — 
a hart and the tongue of the dumb sings; yet there isa 
silence—an unmistakable, inviolate, painful silence—where 
misgivings, or rather scepticism, would inquire, or where — 
unhallowed curiosity would probe. The Bible is like the 
Master who talked freely about the mysteries of His king- — 
dom to blind beggars, and to fallen but penitent women, 
but who uttered not a word to the blasphemous audacity of 
Caiaphas and the insolent impiety of Herod. Now I should 
just like to ask, Is not there something in this that may 
be quoted as a collateral evidence of inspiration? If 
an impostor, or a set of impostors, had gone about to 
write a book, shrewd, skilful men, knowing human nature, 
and knowing how much of the Athenian there is about 
human nature still—for all the Athenians, you remember, 
and the strangers that were at Athens, were bent upon 
nothing else but either to hear or tell some new thing—if a 
shrewd impostor had tried to write a book, would he not 
have just been keen to satisfy the hunger of curiosity, 
which is, I venture to say, as rife in human nature to-day 
as it was in the time when the inspired writer wrote those 
words? Have not impostors uniformly done so? The 
Apocryphal Gospels, the heathen mythologies, the Book of 
Mormon—do not they all peer underneath the surface, and 
give ridiculous and impious details in their endeavour to 
be wise above what is written? It is the Bible alone that 
preserves a dignified and majestic simplicity. Reticent 
upon all those matters that might, perhaps, have settled 
controversies with a word, but that are not necessary to 
make us wise unto salvation ; and so, in the strong words 
of a former dignitary of the Church of England, a grand 
man—Archbishop Whately—no impostor would, and no 
enthusiast could, have written the Scriptures. They are 
not of man’s device, therefore, but they are the words of 
the living God. Now, it has struck me, that we are 
sometimes in danger in these days of ours of conceding a 
great deal too much to our adversaries. Iam afraid that 
one cause of the apparent hold which some of the fashion- 
able scepticism of the present day has got among the peo- 
ple is a sort of hesitancy which Christians have come to 
have in speaking with such men about their belief in the 
inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. Now, if we show them 


THE SILENCE OF THE BIBLE. 144 


that we begin to doubt we have lost half the battle. Have 
we faith? That is just the question. Have we faith in our 
‘own cause? For my part, I am not disposed to yield a 
hair’s breadth to impudent unbelief. For my part I am 
disposed to claim, that the Bible should be the great intel- 
lectual educator of the age. Yes, I say the great intel- 
lectual educator. I know that witlings will sneer at this. 
It is good, they say, for feminine instincts—though that 
is a grand compliment to the ladies, by the way—good 
for feminine instincts, good for emotional satisfactions, but 
altogether out of place—a laggard behind the age—in 
reference to the manly growth of the intellect and of the 
reason of man. Well, Sir William Jones did not think 
so; Robert Boyle did not think so; Isaac Newton did 
not think so; and I think we may let that matter pass 
until we get a modern sceptical philosopher half as big. 
Guizot has put that strongly in his lectures on civil- 
ization, where he claims that from the Reformation— 
which, by the way, was the very first thing which put the 
Bible into the hands of the common people—was the start 
in that race for intellectual progress which gave the first 
wholesale impulse to English literature, and which filled 
the spacious times of great Elizabeth with sounds which 
echo still. And so with the social life of England, for 
the argument might be almost indefinitely extended. I 
am not at all concerned, however, at this meeting, to 
defend the Bible. I want to encourage ourselves in our 
adhesion to it—to its principles, to its precepts to its 
hopes, and to stimulate our personal endeavour to circu- 
late it unto the very ends of the earth. In my best 
“moments, in my calmest and most trustful moments, I am 
not afraid. Ido get a little fretful and impatient some- 
times. I suppose that is in consequence of the infirmity, 
or of the lack of my faith; but I am not afraid in my 
highest and most trustful moments at all as to the future 
destiny of the Bible and of the Christianity which it em- 
bodies. I have marked how God has been in connection 
with it from the beginning. It isa marvellous thing to 
think about—that from the beginning of the world there 
has been a special need ; there has been a special interposi- 
tion. I think I could trace out, if I had time, that God 
had a purpose of mercy towards Britain. Now, I am not 


144 PLATFORM AIDS--BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 


going into ecclesiastical history. I do not know, certainly, 
whether Paul was ever in Britain or not; but I do know 
that Paul was in Rome. I do know that Eusebius tells us 
—and he is rather an authority, you know, as an ecclesias- | 
tical historian—Eusebius tells us that Paul was in Rome 
in the second year of the Emperor Nero. I do know 
this, that Caractacus, the Christian King of Britain, was in» 
Rome as a hostage at the same time. At any rate, we 
know that Caractacus and Paul were both in Rome, and it 
was at the time when Paul was acting as a local preacher 
—when he preached, not at St. Peter’s, but at his own 
hired house, just as some of us do at the present time, who 
are not favoured with large endowments, and that sort of 
thing. He preached in his own hired house, and Carac- 
tacus and Paul being in Rome together, and Caractacus 
coming home, as some say, and establishing, or, at any 
rate, aiding in the establishment, of Christianity—that 
shows that just as God sometimes sends the heathen to 
the Gospel, when the Churches will not send the Gospel to 
the heathen, there is a providence over all the affairs of 
men that works all things steadily and surely to the ac- 
complishment of His own great and gracious ends. Well, 
then, if you come down a little further still, there was John 
Wycliffe preaching away at Oxford with most wonderful 
vigour and success—with such wonderful vigour and suc- 
cess that the mendicant friars hated him, and they got up 
a persecution against him, and drove him away from Ox- 
ford. Well, that was not the only time that a grand and 
good thing has been done for the world by a man that has 
been driven away from Oxford. I am not sure” that we 
should have had that grand battering ram against Rome if 
somebody had not been driven away from Oxford. How- 
ever, God had a much greater work for Wycliffe to do 
than he could ever have done in Oxford. He had a work 
that required the seclusion and the quiet of Lutterworth 
Rectory. And so he was driven away from Oxford and 
silenced from preaching, that he might do the grander, 
nobler, better work of translating the Word of God. His 
preaching would have died with him. When the tongue 
of the orator is silent the voice of his persuasiveness is 
over, and the effect only exists as a dream of exquisite 
memory, But the labour of Wycliffe is a labour that will 


THE SILENCE OF THE BIBLE. 143 


stand for ever. After Wycliffe had done his work, and 
after he had gone home, they disinterred his bones. The first 
experiments of burning that were made in a certain locality 
were made upon bones—a very harmless sort of thing 
though, and Wycliffe suffered posthumous martyrdom— 
the most pleasant sort of martyrdom, I should fancy, in- 
asmuch as there was not much personal feeling about it. 
But you know what has been said, that the ashes were 
taken from the Swift to the Avon, and from the Avon to 
the Severn, and from the Severn to the sea, and were scat- 
tered all over the world. Well, then, by-and-by came 
Erasmus, and he entered upon the same work, too, under 
the same disadvantages. Henry VIII. who, with all his 
contradictions of character, knew a strong man when he 
saw one, and had rather a respect for strength, was dis- 
posed to be his patron. There was a monk, or rather a 
bishop, who was, proh pudor, ignorant enough to say that 
Paul’s epistles were written in Hebrew, who did not like 
Erasmus at all, and who waxed very wroth both with him 
and his book; upon which King Henry VIII. whispered 
in his ear one day, “It is not quite safe for a beetle to at- 
tack an eagle.” That was a wise saying, and if we may 
quote Royal authority for it, there are a good many people 
in our day who would be none the worse for listening to 
that savoury comparison. It is not safe yet for a beetle 
to attack an eagle. Well, then, Erasmus did his work of 
translation for the cultivated. Then there was wanted one 
to do it for the vulgar. Who was to do that? Why, Tyn- 
dale was raised up of God just at the proper time, and he 
went to Oxford, and he met with Wycliffe’s Bible there, 
and it inspired him to do what Wycliffe had done for the 
cultivated on behalf of the common people. And so he 
printed and published his edition of the Bible—what he 
thought a very incorrect one; and Tunstal, who was the 
Romish bishop at that time, bought up every copy that 
he could find of Tyndale’s Bible. “Gentle Mr. Pakington,” 
he says to the merchant, “do your diligence, I pray you, to 
get them. I will pay you whatsoever they cost you. The 
books are naughty books, and I intend to get them and 
burn them all at Paul’s Cross.” There is the second ex- 
periment of burning, you see. They began with bones, and 
then they went on to books. That was the next step 
L 


146 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 


There was the burning of bones, and then the burning of 
books. That is the comparative degree. Well, Tyndale’s 
reply is quaint, almost arch. He says, “I shall get money 
of him for these books to bring myself out of debt, and the 
whole world shall cry out at the burning of God’s Word, 
and the surplus of the money that shall remain shall make 
me more studious to correct, and newly to imprint the 
same.” And so, out of the burning of books, just as the 
devil and all his emissaries are accustomed to outwit them- 
selves in their craftiness, there came the new and corrected 
edition of God’s Holy Word. And that sort of thing is 
continued yet. I hold in my hand here a report of the 
Canadian Bible Society. That is not three years old, and 
in this there is the veritable statement that one of the 
colporteurs has distributed thirteen copies of the Holy 
Scriptures in the district just between Lake Huron and Lake 
Superior, and that, by the connivance or at the instigation 
of the Romish priests, twelve of those copies were publicly 
burnt—within the last three years publicly burnt. And 
yet there is a change. Everybody is getting liberal, and 
tolerant, and merciful now-a-days, and they did not believe 
in the burning of the books. But it is continued still where 
there is a chance of doing it without an outrage upon public 
feeling, because the principles of the hostility are the same. 
Then, you know, by-and-by the great witness himself was 
arrested and imprisoned, and multitudes were burnt with 
the libel or little book round their necks, and suffered for 
the truth of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ, 
and there came the superlative degree—the burning of 
bones, the burning of books, the burning of men. And yet 
what has come out of all this? Why, wherever there has 
been a determined opposition, wherever the forces of evil 
have gathered to a head, and concentrated force and effort 
for a decisive struggle, God has brought good out of evil ; 
just, for instance, as when Rome sent forth the merciless 
Alva, or lit the fire of Lollard martyrdoms, or whetted her 
sword for a St. Bartholomew massacre, or gilt the prows of 
the invincible Armada. What was the result? Only to 
show the indestructibility of persecuted truth, for 


“Truth pressed to earth will rise again— 
The eternal years of God are hers ; 
But Error wounded writhes with pain, 
And dies amid her worshippers.” 


THE SILENCE OF THE BIBLE. 14) 


And just such an head has infidelity made when she mus- 
tered the wits and sages and philosophers of the ency- 
clopadia for their marvellous and pronounced atheism. 
What was the result of that? Why, to rouse Christian 
people from a passive holding of their hope to a determined 
purpose to spread it to the uttermost ends of the earth, fort 
we must never forget that in the throes of that great revo- 
lution the missionary enterprises of the Churches were born. 
Well then, in a few years, the greatest historic attack—the 
most subtle, sinister, acute attack upon Christianity—came 
from South Africa. How did God manifest His power 
then? Why just in the way that He always delights to 
manifest His power—by making mercy triumph over judg- 
ment. In the very same region, in the very diocese from 
which that attack came, there was one of the mightiest 
revivals of pure and undefiled religion that has ever been 
known in this world. And now to-day, in the midst of us, 
at our very doors, when Herod and Pilate are made friends, 
when there is the most subtle and determined opposition to 
the truth, when science, falsely so called, is putting on all its 
energies, when superstition on one hand and infidelity on 
the other are setting themselves against the truth, God has 
shown us how that He can work by simple men coming with 
a directness of aim, with a purpose grand in its simplicity, 
and, above all, with a firm, thorough, hearty belief—for that 
is the secret of it—with a firm, thorough, hearty belief in 
God and Christ, and His power tosaveat once. God is wak- 
ing up the masses of hitherto embalmed life inthis metropolis 
of ours in a way such as we have not known in our gene- 
ration. I believe that God is a match for His enemies— 
that He is always on the alert, and that His providence is 
neither dead nor sleeping. He is in no haste to vindicate 
Himself ; He is in no unseemly hurry, He knows the end 
from the beginning, and He can wait through the patient 
years, assured that the recompense shall come. But I do 
feel to-day that it should be ours, in the midst of all this, 
to give ourselves more thoroughly than we have done to 
earnest, hearty, Christian work. There is a tendency, I 
know, to leave old beliefs behind, and press to some im- 
agined beyond of truth and beauty that nobody has ever 
yet tracked, much less explored; and there are many 
quarters in which it is not scrupled to say with the distin- 


148 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 


guished German philosopher that the desire for truth is a 
better thing than the possession of truth—a brilliant fal- 
lacy, but a fallacy, notwithstanding its brilliancy. And it 
is considered a proof of manliness—alas! that it should be 
so, for it is one of the most hopeless signs of our times—to 
have outgrown the faith of our childhood, which, after all, 
is the sturdy faith upon which the bold manhood of our 
fathers grew. But surely it were a weary world if at this 
time, in this age, nothing were settled. Surely life is of 
the shortest to be spent in dreams. While we battle out 
our great world problems, men are dying, and if the old 
faith be true—and in no battle-field has it ever been 
worsted yet—they go somewhere. Yes, and we are dying, 
too ; and are we to have no fringe upon the cloud of the 
sepulchre? Are we to pass away, as we must do, if you 
take from us our Bible—to pass away with the cheerless 
conviction that life is a balance of chances, and that death 
is a leap in the dark, and all this when the light awaits our 
summons—all this when we may be at any moment sum- 
moned into a glory that is richer than golden—all this 
when Christ, our Surety and our Saviour, sits unmoved and 
expecting upon His throne! Oh, I know that there is a 
great deal of impermanence attaching to all human systems 
of teaching. I know that the test of inquiry, and the test 
of more accurate scholarship, and the crucial test of the 
last assize, may sweep away some of the inscriptions of 
frivolity and vanity that men have carved over the old 
truth ; but the truth that God has. written remains upon the 
face of the rock undefaced and permanent for ever. “ The 
grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of the 
Lord endureth for ever.” I pray that the conscience of this 
large assembly may be bound under a spell from which 
they know not how to be disenchanted, and from under 
whose power they shall pass to their eternity—that each 
one of them may labour, and pray, and give as if the whole 
of the work depended upon his single contribution, at the 
same time resting implicitly upon the blessing of God the 
Holy Ghost as if he knew—which, indeed, he does know— 
that we can do just nothing at all, and that it is only God 
who can make our work to prosper. 


THE MOTIVES TO BIBLE CIRCULATION. 144 


——— 


III. The Motives to Bible Circulation. Sy Rev. 
C. H. SPURGEON. 


I BELIEVE that we have arrived at the “good old times ”— 
the times were never so old as they are now—and I very 
much question whether they were ever one-half as good as 
they are now, and they are going on to be better, thank 
God, and that, I trust, by very great strides. My spirit 
would be indicated by a little story which occurred to me 
while Mr. Richardson was speaking, as happening to my- 
self some three years ago. Sitting in the Colosseum at 
Rome with two or three friends, I said, “Is it not glorious 
to look at this old ruin and see how Christ has conquered 
here; how all these ruins tell what desolations He hath 
made in the earth; how He breaketh the bow and scat- 
tereth the spear in sunder?” So I said, “ Let us have a 
tune,” and we sang the verse— 


“ Jesus’ tremendous name 
Has put our foes to flight 3 
Jesus, the meek, the humble lamb, 
A lion is in fight.” 


Up came two strangers, and said, “ What is that you 
are singing? Let us join you.” One was an American, 
and the other an English clergyman, and we sang together 
the next verse— 


By all hell’s hosts withstood, 
We all hell’s host o’erthrow ; 
And conquering them through Jesus’ blood, 
We still to conquer go.” 


And so we shall mark our track by the ruin of our adver- 
saries ; they shall only be remembered by the place which 
they once inhabited, which shall bea desolation and the hab- 
itation of the bittern for ever and ever. I want to speak 
practically now. I think the time has gone for defending 
the Bible against anybody, whoever he may be; whether he 
happens to be a bishop, or to come from the opposite side, 
wherever he may happen to come from, let him come! 
The Bible really has been so often defended, and the 
defences are so admirable, that I must look upon her now 
as the other day I did upon a little village church which J 


r50 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 


came across in the middle of a wood—Oakwood Chapel in 
Surrey—a church subjected to a great many changes of the 
weather and buttressed, and there are about twice as many 
bricks in the buttresses as there are in the church. There 
seems to me to have been twice as much done in some 
ages in defending the Bible as in expounding it, but if the 
whole of our strength shall henceforth go to the expound- 
ing of it and spreading it, we may leave it pretty well to 
defend itself. I do not know whether you see that lion— 
it is very distinctly before my eyes; a number of persons 
are going to attack it, and there are a number of us 
who would defend the British lion with all our strength. 
Many suggestions are made and much advice offered. 
Will you open the door and let the lion out? He will 
take care of himself. Why, they are gone! He no sooner 
goes forth than away they fly. The way to meet infidelity 
is to spread the Bible. The answer to every objection 
against the Bible is the Bible. Meet any man who raises 
objections against it, and it is very rare that you will find 
that he has candidly studied it, and sought to understand 
it. It does sometimes occur, but even in his case I think, 
if he would read it again, and if he would ask the Author 
what the meaning of it is, and the Author is still accessible, 
he would soon come to a knowledge of the truth; at any 
rate, I shall not convince him much by argument. You 
have heard the story of the good clergyman who attended 
the Bampton Lectures—a very excellent course of lectures, 
no doubt—and thanked God, after hearing them all, he did 
remain a Christian. After reading some of the defences of 
the Bible, it really is a grand thing to find oneself a Chris- 
tian at all. Spread the Bible every one of you, and spread 
the Bible for this reason—that, first of all, it will help to 
keep us all right—I mean the different ministers here be- 
longing to different Churches. It is an admirable law 
which forbids the adulteration of milk, and it is a capital 
plan to keep a lactometer. The Bible is every Christian’s 
lactometer ; he may just see how much of adulteration 
there may be in the milk. You know I am never afraid of 
the Bible myself on Baptist grounds, and when any young 
person comes to me and says: “Can you recommend a little 
book which sets forth your views of baptism?” I always 
say, “ Yes, there is a little book which you may buy fot 


THE MOTIVES TO BIBLE CIRCULATION. 151 


twopence—the New Testament—a wonderful Baptist book” 
—in fact, I never give them any other. If they cannot see 
it there, well, then, I must love them all the same, if they 
love the Lord Jesus Christ. We all of us try to spread the 
Gospel and to preach Jesus Christ fully and freely ; but we 
are something like those water-carriers in Venice who cry 
out, “ Aqua! Aqua!”—and it is avery pleasant sound. I 
thought once I would have a little water, and he gave me 
a glassful for my halfpenny. Well, it tasted of the glass ; 
I did not like it. There is a good deal of the Gospel that 
tastes of the glass. I am afraid there are few of us that 
hand it out quite pure. What a grand thing it is that the 
people can keep a fountain at home to which they can go 
and draw for themselves. When you give them the Bible 
there is no necessity for their getting the Episcopalian 
twang, which is not very sweet to me, nor for their having 
the Dissenting twang, which is not very sweet to other 
people ; they can just go and draw from the living foun- 
tain itself the pure Word of God ; therefore spread it, for 
it will help to keep us all right. I cannot believe it of my 
countrymen that after all they will go sheer over to Popery. 
I do see very hopeful signs among those who have got to 
be very High Church indeed, that they love the souls of 


- men and mean to preach the Gospel. I believe that is be- 


cause the Bible is open, and when it is open, men may go 
a long way in their tag-rags and ribbons, and the like, but 
there is something or other that will hold them to the 
Gospel; there is a centripetal power which will not allow 
them, after all, to go right away into the wild dark regions 
beyond, which are said to be under the dominion of his 
Holiness the Pope. Spread the Bible, dear friends, because 
that will bring us together. If anything will ever unite the 
entire Church of God, it must be around Holy Scripture 
that we shall unite,—certainly never anywhere else. I 
would rather say, I believe, the whole Church of Jesus 
Christ is, and always has been, one in the sense in which 
our Saviour prayed it might be one; for I find myself 
incapable of believing that the petitions which we have 
offered to-night were unheard of God. I believe there is 
a deep, secret, essential vital union between all the elect 
of God who have been quickened by the power of the Holy 
Spirit, and have been washed in a “fountain filled with 


152 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 


ee 


blood.” I think we keep each other alive a bit, and wake 
each other up—not always in the right spirit, perhaps, 
ourselves, but yet God overrules it for the right. But if 
any man shall say of any other man beneath the stars 
that he loves Jesus Christ, and denies that I am his 
brother, he lies in his throat. I am his brother, and there 
is my right hand. If I be one with Christ, it is no credit 
to me to say, “I will meet him on the platform of the 
Bible Society.” Why, I cannot help it. If my little finger, 
because it is more properly than the rest of the body—I 
am alluding now to the Baptists who are just that—if my 
little finger were to say, “I will have no communion with 
the rest of the body ”—well, it can only get out of the body 
by death, but as long as it lives in the body it must really 
commune, because the vitality of the whole body neces- 
sarily causes a communion between all the members of 
the body. It must be so, we cannot help ourselves. You 
shall reach down from your shelves a book, and not know 
who wrote it, and find your heart warming and glowing 
towards the man who wrote it, and when you look at 
the title-page you say, ‘‘ There, now! I believe that man 
spoke at the Liberation Society.” Or else on the other 
hand, you will say, “That is the man that said those tre- 
mendous things there in favour of Church and State at the 
Church Defence Association.” Well, my dear friends, I 
think there is room enough in this great world, and plenty 
of room enough in a land of liberty, for us to speak our 
own minds, and love each other just as well after we have 
done. I for one feel sometimes just like Robin Hood, who 
never received a man into his company till he had played 
him at quarter-staff. It is a little exercise sometimes ; be- 
sides, it tries the joints of our harness, and lets us know 
where our weak points may be. But if ever we are to meet 
—and God grant we may!—that in the movements of 
Providence Christians may come more closely together, it 
must be through our all coming nearer and nearer to the 
great standard of truth, which is the Word of God. Dear 
friends, I would urge very especially that we all try to dis- 
tribute the Scriptures just now, because a very large num- 
ber of persons have been converted—there can be no doubt 
about that—and they will want instruction, and no instruc- 
tion will suit them but that which comes from the Book, 


THE MOTIVES TO BIBLE CIRCULATION. 153 


I feel great confidence in the present religious movement 
because, you will notice, the Bible is to the front. One of 
the marks of a convert now, is, that he or she is carrying a 
very unwieldy Bible of Bagster’s best edition. I am afraid 
it will happen to be rather like a phylactery, if you do not 
mind ; but I am quite satisfied if the Bible is really brought 
to the front. The teaching given is Biblical exposition, and 
very much more of Scripture is given in those addresses 
than will ordinarily be given in ourcommon services. Then 
the spreading of the Bible may avert a great many evils. 
The danger of an excited time of revival is, of course, fan- 
aticism. I like a white heat; I am rather a salamander. 
I long for the day to come when all the newspaper press 
will call us fanatics. I should like to hear them hiss be- 
tween their teeth, ‘‘ You are fanatics and fools.” I should 
think we were getting to be wise then, and getting some- 
thing near the point. It is an evil day for us when men 
speak too well of us; but when they begin to talk of us 
disparagingly it may be that then we are having honour in 
the sight of God. There is no fear, however, of fanaticism 
ever doing mischief if we keep the Bible always to the 
front. That will be the master of the fire, and the fire will 
be a good servant to us. Above all, do keep your Bibles 
multiplying to arrest the progress of Popery—that must be 
stopped. You perhaps have seen upon the Arch of Titus 
in Rome the seven-branched candlestick. We are told 
that, after the triumph, that seven-branched candlestick 
was lost in the Tiber. The Church of Rome has never 
had that seven-branched candlestick; she has lost it. 
I am rather glad of the idea of purifying that muddy 
stream. Perhaps they will find it by-and-by. I should not 
wonder that; by God’s blessing, by the help of Garibaldi, 
they may find out several little things that they have lost. 
And now that the Bible Society has a place in the Corso, 
the way to find out the true seven-branched golden candle- 
stick which is to illuminate the world is straight before 
the eyes of the Romans. We have got the lamp; let us 
carry it. Do not find fault with the darkness, light the 
candle Do not begin to complain about there being error 
in the world, proclaim the truth. And by what means can 
we better proclaim it, than by scattering the Word of God 
on all hands? Dear friends, what are you doing towards 


154 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 


scattering the Bible? Do you give it away? Somebody 
may Say it is very little use giving away Bibles and Tes- 
taments. That is a very great mistake. I have very 
seldom found it to be a lost thing to give a present of a 
Testament. I was greatly astonished about a month ago. 
A cabman drove me home, and when I paid him his fare, 
he said, “ A long time since I drove you last, sir!” “ But,” 
said I, “I do not recollect you!” “ Well,” he said, “I 
think it is fourteen years ago;” but he says, “ Perhaps you 
will know this Testament!” pulling one out of his pocket, 
“What,” I said, “did I give you that?” “Oh, yes!” he 
said, “and you spoke to me about my soul, and nobody 
had done that before, and I have never forgotten it.” 
“What,” said I, “haven’t you worn it out?” “No,” he 
said, “I would not wear it out; I have had it bound !”— 
and he had kept it very carefully indeed. It encourages one 
to give books in that way. Sometimes people won’t value 
a tract. I believe it is often the cheapest thing to give 
a better thing; that which costs you rather more will be 
more highly treasured, and—“ a Testament for twopence!” 
—who would not scatter such a thing broadcast? And 
should you be unable to give away the book itself, quote 
the Scriptures often. A colporteur last Monday said there 
was aman in the habit of addressing him upon religious 
subjects when he was half seas over, as they call it, or 
something of that kind. Whenever he had plenty of drink 
in him he always came up to the colporteur to talk about 
religion. He said “ He came and knocked at my door, 
and I felt vexed that he should so often come to me in 
that condition, and I hurled four texts at his head out in 
the street with all my might.” He quoted the four texts. 
They were very appropriate to the man’s condition, and 
contained a full statement of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 
He said : “I do not know whether I did that man any good 
or not, but there was a woman next door, who just opened 
her door to put two dirty children off her doorstep. She 
stood still and heard all the four texts, and the Spirit of 
God carried them home to her heart and conscience ;” and 
he added, “I have been awakened at night many times, and 
glad to be awakened, by hearing her sing, whilst she lies 
dying upstairs in the room next to mine.” I wish every 
person here who knows the power of the Scriptures on his 


THE MOTIVES TO BIBLE CIRCULATION. 15§ 


own soul would incessantly be trying to spread the Word 
of God and to expound it. Never associate the Bible with 
anything that is dull and unhappy in the minds of your 
children. I think one of the wickedest things in the world 
is to make a child learn a chapter for a punishment. Make 
the Bible a sweet, dear book to your children ; give them 
plenty of pictures, and try yourself to make pictures of the 
Bible by your conversation. A little boy once was at his 
mother’s side, and she was reading to him. “ Mother,” he 
said, “would you let me go out and play for a quarter of 
an hour?” “ What for James?” said she. ‘“ Because then 
you will please read that book to yourself, and then, when 
I come in in a quarter of an hour’s time, I will listen so 
nicely if you will tell me what the book says.” That is the 
thing ; read the book yourself, and get the meaning of it; 
then talk it out again to the children ; they will receive it 
so much the better. We want subscribers to the Bible 
Society, but we want readers of the Bible and expounders 
of it, so that even the little ones may understand. I wish 
this to go hometo every one here. There is asomething for 
all to do. I believe there is a somebody in the world that 
God means to bless through you and nobody else. He has 
given to His dear Son power over all flesh that He should 
give eternal life to as many as His Father gave Him, and 
I think He has divided that power out among us, and given 
to some of us powers over certain flesh, and others power 
over others. There are some who never will enter heaven 
through my preaching, but they will enter heaven perhaps 
from your private admonitions, or through the little New 
Testament which you intend now to put in their way, and 
the gentle word which you mean to add to it. Beloved 
friends, look at the great city that is now before you, which 
God is visiting. Now that we are speaking about the Bible, 
assist in the visitation of this city, house to house, all of 
you, and connect with it the trying to discover whether the 
Bible is in the house, and if it be not there, let every house 
in London be supplied with the Bible. I wish the Bible 
Society would join, if it could, with that organization, and 
determine that every house in London should have a Bible 
at once. Let us all help in doing the work of visiting and 
scattering the Word of God, and let this be your motive: 
if we love the Lord Jesus Christ there is an intimate con- 


156 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 


nection between us and everything that has to do with 
Him. Years ago, when servants used to be servants, there 
was a certain lord who was greatly amused with the way 
in which his old body servant always used to talk. They 
were down in the country, and there was a wagon stand- 
ing at the door of the country seat, and his lordship said, 
“John, whose wagon is that?” ‘“ Oh,” says he, “that is 
ours, my lord; it has brought some of our goods down 


from town.” In a minute or two he said, “John, what 
coach is that coming up the drive?” “ Well, my lord,” he 
says, “don’t you know—that’s our carriage.” “ But,” he 


said, “I see some children in it; are they our children, 
John?” “Qh, yes, my lord,” he says, “bless their hearts, 
they are our children, and Iam going downstairs to bring 
them in,” and he went downstairs to bring them in. Now 
whenever we look upon poor, lost sinners, and look upon 
any whom Jesus Christ would look upon with love, let us 
say, “ Oh, blessed Lord, these are our children, these are 
ours; we seek them because they belong to Thee.” It 
looks rathér daring to call what is Christ’s ours, but his 
lordship was not vexed with his servant for entering into 
such a unity of interests with him, and our Lord above will 
not be aggrieved with us if we call this Society our Bible 
Society ; and as we call the Bible our Bible, we will try to 
spread it amongst our poor citizens all around us, in whom 
we have an interest, because Christ has an interest in 
them. 


IV. The Perils of the Age. Ay THe Most Rev. 
ARCHBISHOP TAIT. 


SOME think that the Christian Church throughout the 
world is at this time approaching a great crisis. I do not 
know that we are approaching one of those sudden revolu- 
tions which often come on persons when they least expect 
them, and produce great and vast outward changes; but 
there are revolutions and changes in the social condition 
of mankind, and in the civilized world, which often come 
very silently, and look, when they are accomplished, more 
complete than even the changes which come by great 
revolutions. And comparing the statements now with 
what I remember a few years ago, 1 cannot help think- 


THE PERILS OF THE AGE. 15} 


ing that the great cause which this Society has in hand 
has difficulties to contend with now which were not known 
then. No doubt, our fathers were exposed to perils quite 
as great as any which threaten society now; but in the 
years which passed during my youth, things had become 
quieter. The great French revolution of the last century 
had apparently cleared the air, and men were settling down 
quietly to the old beliefs and the old state of things. Again, 
the symptoms of great changes among the nations are to 
be heard and seen. Again, new modes of thought are 
making themselves felt amongst intelligent men; and no 
one who looks carefully at the present state of public 
opinion can doubt that a more determined set is now made 
against the simple belief in the power of the Word of God 
than we remember forty or fifty years ago. Therefore, I 
say, this is a time for all men who love the Word of God 
to cast aside—as far as they may, without a compromise 
of principle—the differences that keep them asunder, and 
to rally together for the defence of the Christian faith, 
which, thank God, we all rejoice in, and that Word of God 
on which the doctrines of that Christian faith are built—to 
know as few distinctions as possible between those who 
serve one common Lord, and take the Word of that com- 
mon Lord as the rule of life—as the charter of their hopes 
for eternity. Therefore, I, for my part, think it wise that 
we should in these anxious days, as much as possible, join 
hand in hand; and no cause so completely and so naturally 
unites us, and forbids any sacrifice of principle, while, at 
the same time, it calls us to the other points on which we 
agree, as that cause to which the Bible Society has been so 
successfully devoted during these many years. I say that 
there are great dangers with reference to the reverence 
which we all desire to pay to the Word of God. Great—I 
will not call them insidious, for they are very open—great 
efforts are made to persuade the rising generation that we 
have all, for these many centuries, been under a mistake in 
believing that the Word of God is what we believe it to be. 
Great attempts are made; a circulation—not, thank God, 
equal to that circulation of the Scriptures of which you 
have heard in this report ; but, still, great and well organ- 
ized—of books, the object of which is to shake our faith in 
the Scriptures, is going on, not only in this metropolis, and 


158 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 


throughout all the great towns of this kingdom, but in our 
rural districts also. And not in this kingdom only, but 
throughout the whole of Europe; and if we are wise we 
shall not, by any unnecessary divisions amongst ourselves, 
play the game of our common adversaries, and expose that 
great Word, and that Christian religion with which we are 
put in trust, to the assaults of our enemies while we are 
quarrelling amongst ourselves. This Society has always 
appeared to me to recommend itself to the good sense of 
Englishmen by many qualities—by none more than by the 
simplicity of the work which it takes in hand. All Chris- 
tians, nominally at least, allow that the canon of the Old 
and New Testament contains the Word of God. All 
Christians, however they may practically neglect it, theo- 
retically bow to this Word of God; and, therefore, by 
undertaking that work which all Christians, if they are 
worthy of the name, must allow to be the work of our 
heavenly Master, we cast aside points of difference, and 
practically—not merely in theory, but practically—find that 
we can act together; and this is a great recommendation 
of the efforts of this Society to all common-sense and prac- 
tical Englishmen. The very fact of our circulation of the 
Scriptures appears to me to show that we have adopted 
a wise course in answer to the cavils of those who would 
shake our reverence for the Sacred Volume. But we are 
exposed not only to the arguments of infidel writers. We 
are exposed to attempts to secularise the whole system of 
our education, and the whole system of our government, in 
this land; and our answer to all such attempts is this :— 


Remembering that the word secular speaks of the world 


and things worldly, that the very name means a worldly 
system, and that the system which we desire to inculcate 
is a spiritual and religious system, we say we shall best 
meet the attempts of secularists by placing in the hands of 
all who can read this great charter of our spiritual rights, 
and enabling men to understand that it is not for a short 
life in this world, but for an eternal life in the land of 
spirits, that the human soul has to be prepared by educa- 
tion; and that the affairs of this world can only be well 
conducted if there is a distinct reference to higher sections 
than secular, and to higher truths than any which secular 
knowledge can convey. I think, then, that we do adopta 


FITNESS OF SCRIPTURE FOR DESIGNED END. 153 


wise course as to both speculative and practical attempts te 
shake our religion by circulating as widely and freely as 
possible the Scriptures of truth. I, for my part, believe 
that the civilization of Europe rests upon the Holy Scrip- 
tures. I believe that during these past centuries it has been 
the perpetual appeal to the truths which these Scriptures 
include that has made the nations of Europe different from 
the degraded races of mere savage countries, or from those 
old, worn-out barbarian nations, who, never having been 
blessed with these Holy Scriptures as their charter, have 
been obliged to turn to mere human books as their au- 
thority, and that authority has failed them. 


V. The Fitness of Holy Scripture for its De- 
signed End. Zy BisHop Boyp CARPENTER. 


IT was of the first importance to remember that the 
judgment which they passed upon any work must be 
measured, not by what they expected it ought to con- 
tain, but by what means and in what degree it attained 
the ends for which it existed ; and in measuring, therefore, 
the fitness of Scripture, they were not to look for any 
results which it did not proclaim as its intention and 
design. To look for any elaborate opinion, for any ex- 
haustiveness of treatment, even of those subjects which it 
took up and dealt with, was to look for that which God 
had not intended it to convey. The Apostle reminded the 
readers of Holy Scripture of that fact when he pictured 
the state on earth as one in which the knowledge of 
persons was on all points an imperfect knowledge. The 
Apostle said, “We know now in part;” and as if to give 
the assurance that he did not mean those words to apply 
merely to the limitation of scientific knowledge, but that 
it was also intended to refer to sacred subjects, and that 
even there some limitation was to be expected, he added, 
“We also prophesy in part.” And the Apostle continued, 
that “ We shall be seen then as we are seen, and known as 
we are known.” To impress that upon the minds of the 
audience, it was only necessary to add, what no doubt they 
would be led to adopt upon reflection, that they did not 
expect, when they heard of a man who was perfect as a 
painter, that he also possessed the qualifications of a 


160 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 


physician; they did not expect that a man whom they 
consulted about their bodily ailments could also write a 
good essay or compose a fine poem. Exactly the same 
measure and principle ought to be adopted in dealing with 
Holy Scripture. He would ask what God really intended 
when He gave His people the Bible—its purpose must be 
understood in order that its fitness might be appreciated. 
Its purpose was clearly defined in many parts of the book 
itself to be the moral elevation and the spiritual restora- 
tion of mankind. And if, then, that construction was so 
given unto the world, then they were at liberty to examine 
it upon the grounds of its own claims. If any individual 
contemplated the works of God in a captious spirit, he 
might make numberless objections. The Word of God 
claimed to convert the heart; it claimed to enlighten the 
eyes; it came to rejoice the soul of man. Besides having 
a clear view of what the object of Holy Scripture was, 
they should have some knowledge of the object itself. 
The rev. speaker then supposed that a person was present 
at a surgical operation, and was desirous of seeing how 
the operation began; to the mind of the witness the sur- 
geon dealt very roughly, and hacked in directions which 
he thought unnecessary; but the surgeon would answer 
that the operation was not understood by the person who 
was present. And so with the Word of God; there were 
difficulties about it which were perplexing, and those wlio 
doubted should ask themselves whether they understood 
the disease with which the Scriptures were intended to 
deal. The rev. speaker often thought that there was a 
wonderful harmony between the growth of knowledge on 
one side, and the growth of religious feeling on the other ; 
and that that harmony was not without a purpose—that 
the Almighty had so arranged the économy of history, 
that often great discoveries fitted in at a fitting moment 
for the advancement of spiritual or moral truth. His 
hearers might hear more and more of the scientific difficul- 
ties without being disturbed, if they could say that as for 
God His work was perfect, and as His work was perfect, 
so they were content to measure Scripture by the end for 
which it had been sent—the regeneration of the heart. 
They saw that under the influence of the Spirit the Word 
of God was controlling sin, and they saw its power fot 


THE BIBLE ON THE CONTINENT. 161 


good, and the high work it was carrying out, for there 
could be no higher evidence of that given than that it was 
fitted by God for a great and glorious end, for a great 
elevation of the hearts and minds of those who were under 
its direction. 


VI. The Bible on the Continent. By Tue Dean 
OF CHESTER. 


I EARNESTLY advocate the claims of this Society on the 
ground that it provides the help which is essential for al! 
other religious agencies without hindering any one of 
them. We find it essential in all our efforts in doing 
religious good to use the Bible—at all events, we should 
make very sorry work of it if we made the attempt with- 
out that Book. Now, this Society does precisely this, it 
gives to us a Bible in whatever form we may find it most 
useful. It aids every other Society which labours for the 
spiritual good of mankind. For instance, the missionary 
operations of the Church of England could not be carried 
on without the assistance which comes from this source. 
In this country itself, of the five languages which are 
spoken within our islands, the Holy Scriptures are to be 
obtained in three of those languages only from this Society. 
And if we turn to foreign missions, I believe nearly twenty 
of those translations which the committee of the Church 
of England Missionary Societies employ would_ not be 
found at all unless it were for the efforts of the British and 
Foreign Bible Society. Hence it is a most obvious act of 
justice, as well as of gratitude, that a Church of England 
clergyman should stand here to urge the claims of this 
Society on the generous support of the whole community. 
Another consideration which has weighed very much with 
me is this, that the work done by this Society supplies 
we might almost say, the whole of Christendom with the 
means of correcting religious error when that error arises. 
I am not at this moment alluding to any special errors 
which surround us. I am alluding to the fact that error 
is sure to arise. The Christian religion in contact with 
human nature—and we have nothing to do with the 
Christian religion in any other connection—is sure to be 
liable to corruption and distortion. It is of the utmost 
M 


162 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 


——= 


importance that we should have at all times within our 
reach the means of purifying such corruption and correct- 
ing such distortion, and this is precisely what is done for 
us through the parental precepts of the Holy Scriptures. 
I know it may be said, in answer to this argument, that 
even in the direct study of the Scriptures, we are all liable 
to make mistakes. No one denies this, but unless we do 
directly study the Bible, we are sure to make mistakes. 
Thus, on the ground that this Society puts within our 
reach the Holy Scriptures for the direct study of all men, 
we are bound to do all that we can to promote its interests 
by our prayers, our’ exertions, and our contributions. 
Another argument is this—that in our English Bibles we 
have a most precious bond of union amongst us here in 
England. It is quite true that we are sadly divided, but 
we have in the English version of the Scriptures a bond 
of union, the value of which can only be understood by 
reflecting upon what the state of things would be in this 
country if every religious community owed allegiance to 
separate versions of the sacred volume. It is often said 
that on the platform of the British and Foreign Bible 
Society compliments are paid one to another with regard 
to our religious harmony and unity, and as soon as the 
meeting is over those very persons proceed to take part 
in bitter and acrimonious controversy. I dare say this is 
very true, but I imagine the remedy for such an evil is 
not to be found in diminution of our common interest 
in the Holy Scriptures, but in an increase of that common 
interest. In fact the cure is to be found in coming back 
again to the platform of this society. We must not for- 
get that it is also a Foreign Bible Society, and permit 
me, in using this word “foreign,” to carry your thoughts 
across the streak of silver sea to the continent of Europe. 
It has been my fortune to be brought somewhat closely 
in contact with the Old Catholic movement, not only in 
Germany, but in other places, and I could furnish you 
with illustrations of the increased importance which the 
Scriptures are assuming on the Continent in consequence 
of this movement. It has many sides, each one very in- 
teresting and deserving careful study. But the one fact 
that comes pre-eminently before the view is that there is 
an increasing sense of the necessity for the Bible, and 


x jinn —o 


THE BIBLE ON THE CONTINENT. 163 


of the great harm which results from secluding it from 
the common people. The words in the report with regard 
to Italy were somewhat discouraging, but allow me to 
say the great political changes in that country have in- 
dicated a very Protestant character in the Italian mind, 
and I am very much inclined to believe that these will 
end, under God’s blessing, by producing similar results 
with regard to religion, though not at present. Pre- 
liminary movements have been going on for many years. 


_I was present at a very remarkable meeting in a cathe- 


dral city of Northern Italy, with about a dozen Roman 
Catholic priests more or less interested in the question 
of Church Reform, and priests with whom I had the 
great happiness of joining in prayer. We all knelt down 
and used an Italian version of one of those prayers 
for unity contained in our Prayer-book. One of those 
men spoke to me privately of one great distress which 
weighed upon his mind. He was a most energetic young 
man, and a professor in the Ecclesiastical seminary. He 
expressed his great grief that the training in the seminary 
was casuistical and not biblical. What he craved for was 
a training for the young priests in the Bible, but he said, 
“If I say this to my colleagues, not one of them agree 
with me. I ama marked and a ruined man.” In another 
cathedral city in the northern part of Italy, a priest ex- 
pressed his earnest desire to have a Bible suitably edited 
for circulation in his parish, and he begged us to use our 
best efforts to provide it. These, I think, are hopeful 
signs. I turn now to a different side of the subject, 
though it is one which also has been touched by the 
Bishop of Ripon. An Italian statesman came to this 
country to examine our system of education, his attention 
being specially directed to the education of the middle 
and upper classes. When his report was presented in 
Italy, he called attention to this remarkable fact, that 
wherever he went among those middle class and higher 
class schools, he saw the Bible. I dare say he did not 
fully enter into all that we are thankful to see in the pages 
of the Bible, but he used language of this kind about this 
Book, which he spoke of as though it were a startling and 
delightful novelty to him. I do most earnestly join with 
what has been said, and I do implore all those who have 


164 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 


— 


any doubts upon this subject to think once, twice, and 
many times more, before they do anything which tends to 
dissociate the close connection of the Bible with the educa- 
tion of the young in this country. 


VII. Christian Union. Sy Bishop Bovp CARPENTER. 


IT was a satisfaction to find that the operations of this and 
kindred societies were making real progress amongst the 
great Latin races, and all the more so, because something 
like a taunt had been flung out by an eminent historian, 
that Protestantism could never take anything like deep 
root in the Latin mind. In the report a denial is given to 
that proposition ; and the auspices to be drawn from the 
past promise progress for the future. A gladness would 
cross their minds when they turned to these western sides 
of the Latin race, and took their stand where the atmo- 
sphere teems with recollections of the grand and inspiring 
heroes of the past. The shade of Dante seemed to ac- 
company them amidst all the splendid palaces, and they 
remembered the spot where Michael Angelo conceived his 
splendid thoughts, to leave them for a legacy to humanity. 
They were told the spirit of the Italian mind was oscillat- 
ing painfully away from the dark superstitions under which 
it has long groaned, and that the natural rebound will be 
the dreary waste of doubt and infidelity; but there are 
other symptoms to be noticed, and one is that this Society 
is going forward, and giving out clear, simple, Divine 
declarations of the truth as it is in Christ, and the influence 
is beginning to spread. He was glad that, in the method 
adopted by their Society, they were not content to give 
merely religious tracts, but were determined to call the 
attention of those to whom they came to the great facts of 
history. He felt assured that an inducement to the study 
of God’s Word was to be found in spreading abroad clear 
and definite knowledge of historical facts. In the report 
they would see that amongst those most anxious to 
maintain the cause of truth, there is a great desire that all 
Christian people should be united together and organized 
against that splendid organization whose very power of 
confederacy was one of their greatest obstacles. He often 


Z & re Shea ag 


THE BIBLE AND THE PRIEST. 165 


thought of a story he had heard told by one whose name 


should be mentioned with reverence, the Rev. Hugh 


McNeile. He was landed on the Kingstown Pier, six 
miles from Dublin, where he wanted to go. A large 
number of cab-drivers gathered round him, all contending 
for the honour of carrying his lordship (as they called him) 
to Dublin. He was attracted to one rude vehicle, because 
the driver said it was drawn by a poetical horse; but he 
found the animal the sorriest jade he ever met with. At 
length he was landed in the dirtiest capital in Europe, and 
he asked the man why he called his horse a poetical horse. 
“Well, your lordship,” said the man, “I will tell you now 
you are landed. It is just because his perfections are 
more in imagination than in reality.” And though they 
cannot boast such a magnificent appearance of union in 
the Protestant Church as can be found in the splendid 
organization of Rome, they might perhaps doubt whether 
what is boasted of has not more virtue in imagination than 
in reality. Tuney claimed that which would make them 
true to one another. Men will be drawn together by the 
bands of brotherhood, which distance of time and space 
can never dissolve or annul. The peace of righteousness 
was that which they prayed for, for the help of the people 
to whom they sent the Gospel of God. 


VIII. The Bible and the Priest. By Rev. W. 
ARTHUR. 


THERE is a saying that “ of making books there is no end.” 
Be that as it may, it is very certain that of making books 
there was a beginning. Wedonot exactly know when the 
beginning occurred, or where, but we have no reason what- 
ever to believe that the first beginning of making books 
was away somewhere about the roots of Mount Sinai. 
Very probably upon the beautiful banks of the Euphrates 
or those of the Nile, or on other more fertile places there 
had sprung up books before that time. But there came a 
root out of a dry ground, a book beginning in the desert, 
written by one who had the double disadvantage of being 
under the training of heathen priests full of false doctrines, 
and having only to address a community of ex-slaves whe 


166 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 


had never been organized to the habits or illuminated with 


the ideas of freed men. I do not know what other doc- — 


trine than that of the survival of the fittest will enable us 


to account for the fact, that while all other attempts to — 


begin books in those ancient times, telling of such things 


as the creation, the first being, the first act, and so on, 
have passed away, the Bible still remains. I challenge its © 


enemies to say whether there is in the world one power to 
be compared with that of the Bible. Twenty years ago, 
you thought that in twenty years from that time, the 
fact which they had always been proclaiming, that the day 
of the Bible was beginning to go down, would become 
apparent to the most purblind. Very well, the twenty 
years are passed ; is its circulation more restricted? Are 
its doctrines more discredited ? Are its morals less sound ? 
Are its prospects less bright? Are there fewer of the 
nations that are valuing it or not? The fact is I do not 
know that its enemies can point to any part of the world 
where the Bible is thought to be declining, except that the 
Romanists say that they are sure to triumph in England 
presently. They are not saying that of any other country. 
They admit that in Asia, in Africa, and upon the continent 
of Europe, Bible ideas and institutions are making way 
against all their power. They say that here it is not so, 
and that here they have a clear prospect of winning us 
back and locking us all up again within that wonderful 
enclosure where there shall be a Bible—but where? Not 
in the pulpit, not in the school, not on the family table, not 
in every man’s closet, not in every child’s hand ; but it 
shall be in the keeping of the confessor, and with the 
accredited notes of the church. Take the case of Von 
Schulte, hear his testimony—that in all his schooling he 
never had a Bible lesson. Had he not a religious lesson ? 
was he not religiously educated, and was not the first 
postulate of religious education in the hands that had 
to handle him—the exclusion of the Bible? The design 
of the Vatican is to substitute the word “religious” for 
“ Scriptural,” to exclude the Bible and exalt the priests. 
Now, I say, never surrender the old English word, the 
Bible—the Bible and teaching out of the Bible, and no 
priest, no pope above us ;—the Bible and the Queen! no 
other power to be acknowledged. Alluding to the efforts 


THE BIBLE AND THE PRIEST, 167 


_ of this Society in the various spheres of labour, one feels it 
very hard to say where we have most to encourage and 
most to stimulate. I do not at all feel discouraged by the 
gloomy statement of the Report about Italy. It is per- 
fectly true that as yet the number of truly godly men in 
Italy is very small ; but it is equally true, considering the 
time and the agency, it is, I believe, as great as you can 
find on record in any other country in the world. Let us 
not be discouraged there. Bible meetings have been held 
in Rome, and Bibles are sold in Rome, and the Bible is 
being read in Rome. At the last census 2,900 people 
within the walls of that city returned themselves as 
Protestants. That is not a matter to be despised. Then 
if we look to that great Germany, of which so much has 
been said, I do trust that Previdence is so over-ruling it 
that the Bible shall become more and more the symbol 
of international sympathy between the great Protestant 
countries, Germany, England, America, England standing 
between the one and the other, between the old world and 
the new, having ties with both and claim upon both, a 
union not against the world but for the world, for I believe 
that our dear friends in France the best thing that could 
happen to France would be to have neighbours all around 
her as strong that she should ask nothing better from them 
than to be let alone, and they ask nothing better from her 
than to be let alone. When it comes to that all the world 
round, we may hope for the time when men may begin to 
learn war no more. As to the great work in India, thank 
God that it is going on. Many thousands of towns and 
villages your colporteurs have reached, in many a place 
_ the Bible has been its own witness. Africa wants the 

Bible. The heart of Livingstone is in Africa, though the 

clay of Livingstone lies yonder in Westminster Abbey. 

When I saw that clay laid there, and saw the President of 

the British and Foreign Bible Society following it, and saw 

the veteran missionary who sits there, Robert Moffat, I felt 

as if there were an undercurrent of voices—the voice of 

the great scientific world, and the voice of the historic 

world, and the voice of the literary world—that passed so 

softly; and then, as if there was the great social voice, 

mother Britannia, saying with satisfaction, “He has been 

restored to my bosom,” and Scotia saying to daughter 


168 PLATFORM AIDS—BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 


Albion in the sight of mother Britannia, “ Well, well, he 
shall sleep in your bosom, but he was my bairn.” And 


above all to me came the voice of Africa saying, “I must 


have the light! I must have the light! The deserts and 
the crimes of men have shut me off long enough from the 
light, but I must have the light!” And another voice 
saying, of England, “Which is committed to my trust.” 
We often speak of our trust in God, and ought to do so; 
we seldom think of that solemn act in which God puts 
trust in us, “Committed to my trust.” What is committed ? 
a message—a message of glad tidings. Every one re- 
members that event in the history of old time, when news 
reached Athens of the fall of Mitylene, and in a fit of 
madness and pride the Athenians decided that every man 
of Mitylene should be put to death, and sent off a swift 
galley with the doom. But in the night they repented, 
and sent off another galley with the command that the 
people should be spared. The gospel of life was com- 
mitted to them ; they had to row for dear life. They were 
in time, for the people were saved. England! England! 
it is committed to thy trust, for India, for Africa, for many 
another land. May God give thee faith to fulfil it ! 


IX. The Power of the Bible. Zy Rev. E. HERBER1 
Evans. 


HE had gone through North and South Wales for several 
years as a deputation for this noble Society, and he had 
always found that when he could get audiences to see their 
indebtedness to the Bible personally, and socially, he had a 
contribution exceeding the one of the previous year. The 
Bible took with it everywhere a standard of morality 
simple enough to change the life of the inmates of the 
humblest cottage home, and high enough to transform a 
world with a Paradise regained. There were three Bibles 
that were great powers in the formation of character in 
Wales, the Family Bible, the Teacher's Bible, and the 
Mother’s Bible. Having illustrated the power exerted 
under these forms by the Scriptures, the speaker dwelt 
upon the varied influences exerted by the religion of the 
Bible, and the failure of all efforts to destroy its power, 


| 


CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND TEMPERANCE. 163 


The Bible still remained, he added, on the study table 
as an unsolved problem, with a self-conscious sense of 
power, seeming to say to all the other volumes in the 
library— 


“ Books may come and books may go, 
But I go on for ever.” 


IV. TEMPERANCE. 


I. The Church of England and the Temperance 
Movement. Sy Tue BisHop or BEDFORD. 


WE are here as a Branch of the C.E.T.S., and as a Bishop 
of the Church I feel very keenly desirous to promote its 
interests in every way I can, and I think that as I am 
addressing Church people to-day, I will venture to say, 
Let us try to work as far as possible upon Church lines. 
We love our dear old Church of England, and I do not 
think we can do better than stick to her and work on her 
system and on her lines. I mention that, because I think 
it will be a great advantage to this part of our work if as 
many Branches in various parishes are not only parochial 
movements confined to a particular parish—there are a 
certain number of such—but that they should be definitely 
and distinctly affiliated to the Parent Society. I believe 
myself that the Society is not aware of the great number 
of Branches, because those Branches have never taken the 
‘trouble to make themselves known and to go through 
the very simple process of declaring themselves Branches 
of this Society. I think it will be very desirable if, as far 
as possible, the Juvenile Branches, wherever established, 
‘should be affiliated to this Society in order that we may 
have the strength of sympathy and fellowship, that we 
may know what large numbers there are all working in 
the same cause, and that we may feel that our cause is not 
an isolated thing, not a mere movement circumscribed by 
the boundaries of any one parish or district, but it is a 
great national movement as well as a Christian Church 
movement. With regard to the juvenile part of the work, 
certainly my great hopes for the improvement of the 


170 FLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


country lie with the young. I have heard a great deal 
during the last year with regard to the state of our poorer 
fellow countrymen, the homes especially in which they 
live, and have listened to a good deal of painful evidence 
upon the wretched and disgraceful state of those homes— 
if you can dare call them such, for one is ashamed ta 
give the beautiful word “home” to such places—and this 
evidence makes one feel that there is a great deal to be 
done before one can look upon this country as in at alla 
fit and proper state for the training up of the next genera- 
tion. The places in which so many of our poorer brethren © 
live are so hopelessly crowded, and the apartments of those 
places are so wretched, the rooms so dirty and ill-adapted 
for cleanliness and for healthfulness, that one feels pity for 
the poor children who are brought up there, and one knows 
as a matter of common experience that the ill-ventilated, © 
crowded, and unwholesome rooms, in which so many are 
brought up, are amongst the greatest incentives possible to 
those habits of drinking which we deplore, and against 
which we are fighting. For my part, I grieve with all my 
heart over the way in which strong men and strong women, 
who feel the sinking of such a life, and even little children 
too, are often driven to the public-house. It makes one’s 
heart bleed to know it, but at the same time one feels that 
if one lived in such places as have been described before © 
the Royal Commission to inquire into the housing of the 
poor, one’s wonder is really taken away—not one’s pity. 
It is sometimes a wonder that people will stop in of an ~ 
evening in such places at all. I say that my hope is in 
the young, and it is so because we must train them to 
better habits, we must teach them cleanliness, pari 
some sanitary matters, to know how to make their homes — 
healthful, and we must so train them that when they 
become the generation of fathers and mothers of our land © 
they may be in a far more wholesome state than the — 
present generation isin. If we are to do this work, surely © 
that Branch in which we are engaged is a most important : 
Branch, and one that must stand in the very forefront of — 
all our endeavours. I do not see how children are to be © 
trained to any better life than that in which they will come — 
to unless they find an escape from the perils of drink. 
Unless they really are trained up to fight against it, to 


: 


* 
CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND TEMPERANCE. 171 


NE ETI TEE aE SEE nISnEEnE EEE 


resist it, to flee from it and save themselves from the 
misery it brings—I say, I do not see what hope there is of 
better homes for the future or better habits amongst our 
people. I hope that, looking at it from that low point of 
view, we may see this movement progress and prosper. 
But, then, we want to rise to something higher. I want to 
feel not only that we are bound to do all we can to train 
up our people socially, and civilize, and brighten, and 
humanize their lives, to give them something more to 
interest them than they have at the present time—all that 
is true, but beyond that surely what we do want most of 
all is to teach them the fear of God, to follow the Saviour, 
and to lead religious lives as well as pure and cleanly lives. 
I believe that as the drink is the great enemy of purity 
and cleanliness in the habitations of the people, no less 
certainly is it the great enemy of all religious life and 
character. It seems to me that the familiarity not only 
with drink itself but with all its surroundings is one of the 
most deteriorating things to the whole moral atmosphere. 
The children cannot be expected to be brought up to lead 
the lives we should wish with such surroundings, and 
therefore every single child we can enrol in our Bands of 
Hope, and who joins this Juvenile Section, is one more on 
the side of hopefulness and on the side of what we are all 
fighting for—the rescue of our people from degradation, 
from poverty, from misery, from irreligion. Therefore, 
I do hope that God will bless this work very much indeed. 
Children sometimes fancy that they can do very little 
themselves. They can be trained, helped, and guarded by 
others, but they often think that there is not much that 
they can do themselves. Now, very little children, do 
remember this, that you can do a great deal more than 
you think. The example of a little child joining such a 
Society as this, and steadfastly refusing to enter into 
temptation—because that is really what you are doing— 
is of the greatest possible benefit. We pray, “Lead us 
not into temptation,” and I cannot imagine anything much 
better for people to see and to know than that little 
children not only pray this, but as far as possible act up 
to it by avoiding temptation. They reason, “I say every 
day such a prayer as that, but how can I say it if I allow 
myself to go into temptation?” Therefore, you are doing 


172 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


a good deal in the way of example. I will tell you a story 
which will show you how an example may be blessed. 
There is a large hospital in the East of London, and in — 
one of the wards where a good many men are always 

lying in their beds, there was quite a little boy brought in” 
one day. There were several other boys there. He was 
not so ill that he could not get up and down from the bed | 
himself, so at night, before he went to sleep, he knelt down ;_ 
and a rough man called one of the nurses and said, “ What - 
is that lad doing?” “Saying his prayers.” “ What does 
he belong to?” asked the man. “I will ask him when he 
is done,” said the nurse. She went to the boy and asked 
him where he came from and what he belonged tu. He 
said, “I am Church of England.” She went back to the 
man and said that the boy belonged to the Church of 
England. “Then,” said the man, “I should like to see 
the parson of the parish he comes from.” So they sent for 

the parson, and he came; but before he did so that little” 
boy had been a missionary in the ward. He had been 
telling the men and the other boys that they ought to say 
their prayers; and he had so prepared the way for the 
clergyman that he was astonished to find what one little 
boy had done by his example. Now, dear children, you” 
try and do the same. | 


II. The Picture Reversed. Sy Canon FLEMING. 


WE have all perceived by the delight we have received 
that this is the Scotch evening, and I read in the Zesmper- 
ance Record that an Irish evening has preceded it, and so’ 
we all féel that the rose, the shamrock, and the thistle have 
been united in this, and in every good work of the past and > 
the present, and we believe it will be so in the future. 
There is no time at which we could be better reminded of | 
the fealty and loyalty of the United Kingdom than at a 
time when we have just heard from our good Queen of the 
betrothal of her youngest daughter, and in a week when all 
England has celebrated, not with pageant as in olden days, 
but with the quiet respect and homage of their hearts, the 
coming of age of our young Prince Edward, reminding us 
that, no matter what may be the clouds upon the horizon 
for old England, the throne of this country rests fast and_ 


y 


\ 


THE PICTURE REVERSED. 1975 


: strong and deep upon the foundation of national loyalty. 


It also reminds us—does this rose, shamrock, and thistle— 
of three bonds of union in reference to the Temperance 
cause which brings so many of our hearts together even on 


_ this wet and inclement night ; I mean that in the past days 


when it had its hard beginning there were three things that 
were dead against this cause—Science, Experience, and the 
Church. Science, so called, was opposed to this cause in 
the shape of the doctors, and the wives joined the doctors 
in those days, and that made science so much the worse for 
the married men. The consequence was that whenever any 
of us dreamed of becoming a teetotaler, the wife got the 
doctor on her side, and science was dead against us. But 
now what a wonderful change! Modern wives dare not 
say a word on that side now, because, though there are men 


here and there who no doubt hold fast to the old drinking 
_ customs and the good the drink is supposed to do to their 


patients, more than 2,000, you will remember, long ago, of 
the ¢zte of the medical profession signed in favour of total 
abstinence, and we have such men as Dr. Richardson and 


other eminent scientists of the day all declaring that stimu- 


lants are not necessary for bodily health and daily work. 
Then we had in those days Experience against us. That is 
to say there was no experience at all. People had not tried 
it long enough. The good men who were the pioneers of 
this cause first began it; then old friends came to them 
and asked them very crucial questions about how it would 
suit them, and they could not quite answer, so that formerly 
aman used to sign the pledge as if he were going to be 


_hanged, or going to be married, and sign it with a far more 


unsteady hand than we clergy are accustomed to see some 
of you sign your names to the register when you are 
married. If a man now comes and says, “I want to know 


_ how this will suit my constitution,” then, of course, you can 


hear from him—because you must sympathise with his 
constitution—you can hear from him what kind of a con- 
stitution he has, and then say that “for many years there 
have been hundreds and thousands of just such a constitution 
as yours who have done without it and have done very 
well.” And then if a person comes and says, “ You must 
remember that I am no longer young ”—we do not always 
like to acknowledge, men as well as women, our age—“ but 


» 


174 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


how do you think it will suit my age?” Of course you 
must let a man tell you in a general way. Do not ask a 
lady her age, but let a man tell you in a general way, and 
you can say, “ There are hundreds and thousands exactly 
your age and older too, who have done a long time without 
it, and done very well.” Hence we have now got experience 
as well as science ; and then there is the third thing which 
makes up the rose, the shamrock, and the thistle in this 
great cause, the Church of God is on our side. In the 
early days of this movement there were hardly any of the 
clergy—twenty years ago when I joined it there were 
hardly any, and hardly any of the Nonconformist ministers, 
comparatively speaking, who were on our side, but now the 
Church of God, and by that I mean the whole Church of 
God—I do not mean any particular section of it, but I 
mean the universal Church—for I desire to remember in 
this, in every cause, that every Christian is my brother, 
and if we cannot learn that here below, and if we cannot 
learn to shake hands over God’s good cause, it will be a 
very bad thing for us because we shall have to shake hands 
when we meet in heaven. Well, the whole Church of God 
is taking hold of this cause, and the consequence is that 
there is a wave of Christian temperance going over this 
land, and we have these three things, which were once 
against the cause all on our side—Science, Experience, and 
the Church of God. And now, friends, another year has 
just turned with all of us. We have come here to listen to 
charming music, we have come here to have the infliction 
of a ten minutes’ speech, but we are not met either to listen 
to music or to talk only. If we are honest, and if we are 
sincere in our purpose, in our work, and in our duty, we 
meet to consider how each of us ought to act, and what we 
ought todo. As Longfellow said: 


“Act, act in the living present, 
Heart within, and God o’erhead.” 


What are we going to do this year for this good cause? 
‘ Let us all find out something we can do to advance it. If 
we have not joined it let us do so this year. Give your 
influence, your example, your name to it; you will never 
regret having joined this cause, and if you have joined it, 
then strive to bring others along with you this year. Strive 


is 


THE PICTURE REVERSED. 17§ 


to make your influence and example more felt than they 
have been yet. Remember, we are united in God’s cause. 
God is on our side. You will never hear men get up now 
and defend this thing as they used to do long ago. There 
is not a father to-night who, if his son were going out into 
the world this New Year, would not rejoice to know that 
he went out as a total abstainer. There is not a mother in 
London to-night who, if her young daughter were going 
out into the world far away, would not rejoice to think she 
went out as a total abstainer. There is not an employer in 
London to-night—I care not whether he be a moderate 
drinker or an abstainer—who would not be glad to employ 
a young fellow of whom it is said, “He is a staunch 
teetotaler,” in his business. So, brethren, we are banded 
in a good work. It is God’s work. God is on our side, 
and let us recollect that we are banded against a terrible 
evil—the great curse of this country, because it is one of 
the most widespread. You have heard a great deal in the 
last year of the cholera. You know how many thousands 
that plague has swept off. We have all just heard of that 
terrible earthquake and the shocks that are still felt, as it 
were, beneath the feet of the living, and you know how 
many lives that earthquake has destroyed ; but recollect 
that the cholera and the earthquake together, yes, and war 
and other things added, and disease and sickness—they have 
not slain more in comparison than this evil and curse of 
strong drink is doing in the homes of this land. And then 
remember that this is an evil of ourown creating. It is an 
evil of man’s creation—not an evil of God’s dispensation. So 


let us be united in our fight against this evil. The victory is 


not won yet. The battle has only begun. Let us be united 
in our purpose and in our effort, and remember that we shall 
never desist while there are drunkards still to be rescued, and 


while there are homes—miserable homes—still to be filled 


with the gladness and the sunshine of Christian joy. 


“In the Name of God advancing, 
Plough, and sow, and labour now; 
Let there be when evening cometh, 
Honest sweat upon the brow.” 


“And the Master shall come smiling 
When work stops at set of sun, 
Saying as He pays the wages, 
* Good and faithful man—well done?® 


176 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


III. Temperance Arguments. Sy THE BisHop oF © 
LonpDon. 


THE Bishop remarked that the arguments used in the 
Temperance cause must be repeated again and again. It © 
was only by gradual process that the practices of mankind — 
could be changed. Long after they had convinced men’s © 
reason they would cling to their own customs, and do- 
things which they professed to regret while they did them. 
The advocates of Temperance did not profess any magical © 
method, and they must persist in their work so long as bad © 
customs were persisted in, and must let people know they 
did not intend to be defeated by the slowness of their own 
progress. Indeed, though their work might be called slow, 
there was enough of it to show God’s blessing was with ~ 
them. Work of this sort must take the labour of more — 
than one generation. But this would not daunt those who © 
had taken up the cause of Temperance. They were grow- — 
ing in numbers as they were growing in resoluteness. The 
young were growing up who had never known the taste of ~ 
drink, and with the princely heart of innocence walked in — 
the midst of temptation without harm. And those who © 
hesitated to join the Total Abstainers were joining the ~ 
General Section in large numbers, and that was a very © 
strong evidence of the growth of the cause in public 
opinion. It meant that though there were a great many 
not yet convinced, it was the duty of every one not yet — 
convinced to take part in the work. And by joining the 
Society they showed they did not disapprove the methods 
of Total Abstainers. He looked upon the growth of the 
general section as a remarkable phenomenon in the history ~ 
of the Temperance cause, although he himself had long 
joined, and joined with all his heart, the cause of total 
abstinence. The general section was a proof that they 
endeavoured to force no man’s conscience in spite of their — 
enthusiasm. Anda large number of those who began in 
the general section had ended in the total abstinence sec- — 
tion. In this way also all society was penetrated. They — 
were leavening the whole of society from the highest to 
the lowest. At many a gentleman’s table now there was 
no intoxicating liquor at all, and at almost every table one 
sat down to the quantity had diminished and diminished ~ 


TEMPERANCE ARGUMENT. 179 


_ year after year, until it was very rare indeed to see now 
__ what ten years ago was exceedingly common, namely, men 
_ who never got drunk in their lives, but who yet, neverthe- 
less, indulged very foolishly indeed. Then, what had been 
done by this enemy of all good? How had it ruined our 
' trade far more than any other cause? Let them think 
how this evil had interfered with our faith far more than 
any other cause. Scepticism and infidelity—what could 
they do, evil as they were, in comparison with that indul- 
gence which robbed a man of his reason to begin and 
degraded him body and soul at last? Or how could they 
deny that the souls that had been lost by any such cause 
as this could be numbered against the souls perishing be- 
cause all religious life was dying out through indulgence 
in this dreadful sin? There were many other things doing 
mischief, but there were no others that could be compared 
with, or that could be set by the side of, this monarch in 
the kingdom of wickedness. They meant to go on and 
fight to the end, and they were sure to win. It was true 
that at present it seemed as if they had as yet only dealt 
with the fringe and surroundings of the mass of mischief. 
There was, as it were, a hard and solid core of evil that 
they had been unable effectually to reach, and which they 
could not touch as yet. They wanted more workers; they 
wanted more devotion to the cause, more entire self-sur- 
render, and they would surely get that. For, as the cause had 
gone on, this had occurred—that whereas at the beginning 
there were but a few earnest men who made themselves 
conspicuous by their labours in the endeavour to deal with 
this evil, whose names would never be forgotten, now the 
work was taken in hand by thousands upon thousands 
whose very number obscured their fame. This was indeed 
a matter which perpetually gave him the deepest delight— 
that go where he would he found amongst all men, and in 
every rank, and most of all in the ranks of those who toiled 
with their hands for their daily bread, champions of the 
cause who were fighting hard—who were unknown to the 
_ world, but who would not lose their reward either in this 
world or the next. 


178 PLATFORM AIDS--TEMPERANCE. 


IV. Temperance in the Army and Navy. By 
Mr. W. S. Caine, M.P. 


MR. CAINE said : “ In bygone times it was supposed that an 
Englishman, like the denizen of any other country, could 
not fight unless he were primed with intoxicating liquor, but 
the National Temperance League had taught the world that 
English sailors and soldiers at least did not require ‘ Dutch 
courage’ to enable them to do their duty. On the contrary, 
the experience of every day was demonstrating in both 
the army and navy that the greatest hardships could be 
endured, the most difficult campaigns carried through, and 
the hardest work achieved by men who wholly abstained 
from intoxicating liquor. In the campaign up the Nile, 
Lord Wolseley knew well what he was about, and the 
country was persuaded that he was carrying to a successful 
issue one of the most difficult campaigns it had ever fallen 
to the lot of a British general to conduct. The greater 
portion of his army had already traversed the worst part 
of the desert route, and done it upon water. That water, 
he regretted to say, was of inferior quality, being largely 
tinctured with mud, and the ration was only one quart per 
man per day, but still so successful had the march been 
that there was scarcely an invalid. Again, the most brilliant 
infantry charge of modern times—that of Tel-el-Kebir— 
was carried through on cold tea, and not upon the spirit 
ration ; while every day they were proving in the navy— 
the finest service in the world —that the seamen and marines 
could do all the miscellaneous work that fell to them in 
campaigning and at sea infinitely better as teetotalers than 
under other circumstances. As regarded the bluejackets, 
8,000 of them were teetotalers. Add to these the 4,00¢ or 
5,000 teetotalers in the training ships and in the naval 
schools, and they had a grand total of about 12,000 men 
and boys in the Royal Navy who were abstainers. In- 
telligent officers were glad to see their men becoming 
teetotalers, knowing perfectly well, whatever might be their 
own opinion as to moderate drinking, that their men could 
do their work better without intoxicating liquors than with 
them. The agency by which this satisfactory state of 
things had been brought about was the National Temper- 
ance League. They began with the boys in the Greenwich 


TEMPERANCE IN THE ARMY AND NAVY. 17 


Hospital School, where there was a flourishing Band of 
Hope, and where Captain Burney, the superintendent, 
gratefully recognised the service Temperance work had 
done to his charge. When the lads entered the training 
ships they were still encouraged to persevere in Temperance 
principles, and finally, when they went on board the men- 
of-war, they found the Temperance Society, which existed 
on nearly every ship, ready to receive them, and there they 
made friends with abstainers older than themselves, For 
the first two years after entering a man-of-war, instead of 
drawing the spirit ration, the boys were allowed cocoa, 
coffee, and other substitutes. These substitutes they lost 
if at the end of the two years they elected to have the 
spirit ration. This change also was largely due to the 
National Temperance League. The Temperance education 
these boys received in the Greenwich Hospital School, 
afterwards in the training ships, and finally in the Temper- 
ance Societies on board the men-of-war, encouraged these 
lads to persevere as teetotalers, and hence the remarkable 
change which had been brought about. In this great 
improvement the work of Miss Weston should not be for- 
gotten. She had the largest public-houses in Devonport 
and Portsmouth without intoxicating drinks, for they were 
for the elevation and not the debasement of the sailor, and 
they were self-supporting. No one could tell what the 
British navy owed to the successful efforts of the League 
to improve the morale of the sailor both at sea and on 
shore. The way the League proceeded was by persuasion 
—not by compulsion. He might claim to have helped it 
in the House of Commons in getting certain concessions 
made to the abstainers in the fleet. When, not long ago, 
he was seeking re-election at Scarborough, his opponents 
asked the question of the people, ‘ Will you vote for a man 
who is going to rob poor Jack of his grog ?’ and the answer 
of the electors was to return him by a large majority. He 
explained to them, as he wished to explain to this meeting, 
that he never proposed to ‘rob poor Jack of his grog;’ all 
he wished to do was to give him every possible facility and 
encouragement to give it up voluntarily and become an 
abstainer. He did not believe in compulsion; that would 
be a great mistake; but all he desired was that the full 
facts of the case should be laid before the sailor, and that 


180 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


then he should judge for himself. If in a few years they © 
had been able to persuade 12,000 men and boys in the 
navy to become teetotalers, need they despair of a time ~ 
when the majority, if not all, of them would be voluntarily — 
abstainers from that which, in his opinion, degraded and 
debased the men who used it, whether they were sailors or 
landsmen? He had shown that the Temperance cause 
was marching on in the navy as elsewhere, and all he 
asked from his hearers was that they should give to this 
subject their impartial consideration as to whether it was 
not their duty as Christians and as citizens to abstain from 
that which, more than anything else, was inimical to the 
peace, the prosperity, and the happiness of the country.” 


V. Licensing Laws. Sy PREBENDARY AINSLIE. 


Our present licensing laws are an attempt to place some 
control upon the liquor traffic, and of attempts, not to 
make men sober by Act of Parliament, but to prevent 
that impoverishment of the country which was the result 
of excess in drink. Some of you know that there was a 
special fine upon drunkenness in a public-house, because 
the licensing of that public-house was supposed to make 
it a place where the drink could be sold without drunken- 
ness, and if the holder proved himself unworthy of that 
license, there was a heavy fine upon drunkenness in a 
public-house. I will say one word upon the definite 
position of total abstinence in reference to this great 
movement. I will say that, to the inebriate, total abstin- 
ence is a necessity. Those in trades which bring them 
into danger and temptation, which we may believe to be 
irresistible—to such total abstinence is a necessity. Why 
do I mention this? Because I know that we are often 
prejudiced against the Temperance movement by the ex- 
travagant, enthusiastic, and fanatical language employed. 
But do you know perhaps that some of the most extrava- 
gant utterances are made by those who are working men 
themselves, and who know the absolute necessity of total 
abstinence as the only security for their fellow working 
men. I have already given you one instance of not per- 
haps very brilliant logic. You do not expect these men to 


LICENSING LAWS. 187 


be very brilliant logicians, but they know what they are 
about. They know that the young soldier who has just 
enlisted, if he be not an abstainer, his chances are a thou- 
sand to one against his remaining sober and keeping out 
of the punishment lists. You may remember that at the 
meeting held in this room last year Lord Napier of 
Magdala told you that he had taken the trouble to in- 
vestigate 18,000 cases of offences of soldiers, and not one 
single one was committed by a teetotaler. What does 
that show? It shows that to the young soldier entering 
upon his dangerous career—the danger from the drink is far 
greater than the danger from the bullet. His only proof 
armour is, under the grace of God, total abstinence. When 
the working man then says that nothing but total absti- 
nence will do, try not to be offended. Try to put yourself 
in that man’s position, and look at him in his earnestness, 
and see whether you cannot take him by the hand and 
say, “Nothing you can say will offend me. I know it will 
not be universally acceptable to the country, but God help 
you to do good as you are doing it.” Be very patient. 
How do you know the reasons why these enthusiastic 
advocates speak as they do in burning words. Do any of 
you know what it is to have intemperance in your own 
families, to have a home desolated, to have a home that 
the world would call respectable, destroyed by intemper- 
ance? And then, do you think that a man who has seen 
that, and who believes that he can, by earnestly pleading, 
prevent it in the case of others—do you believe that such 
aman can measure his words? You do not know human 
nature if you think he can. You have never felt what it 
is to be enthusiastic; God grant that you may feel it. 
Therefore, do not be hard upon those who will, perhaps, 
offend your ‘fastidious ears by the burning enthusiasm of 
their words. Turn your thoughts into your own memories. 
Do you not recollect a time in your lives when you were 
enthusiastic, when you used words, perhaps, a little too 
strong—I mean the time before you were married. Were 
there no little exaggerations in your little methods of ex- 
pression? Why was itso? Because you felt very deeply 
and you were apt to express yourselves a little bit warmly. 
Those people feel deeply, and no wonder that they express 
themselves warmly. I turn to my total abstinence friends, 


182 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE, 


— 


for Iam a total abstainer, and I say, do you be patient 
with those who are abstainers. Instead of snubbing them, 
try and show them how can they help you. A branch 
that has a good general section is a strong branch, and do 


not discourage it. You remember what we read, “Is thy © 


heart right with my heart? if it be so, give me thine 
hand !” 


VI. What Doctors Say. By Tue Rev. J. W. Horstey, 
M.A., Chaplain of H.M. Prison, Clerkenwell, £.C. 


For good or for evil the power and influence of the medical 
profession in the matter of the use of alcoholic drinks is 
equalled and limited only by the paramount claims of duty 
on the one side, and of the wzs zmerti@ of perversity and a 
vicious appetite on the other. 

It is honestly admitted, though the denial of every 
doctor in the world would not alter facts, that infinite and 
often irremediable harm has been done by the well-nigh 
indiscriminate prescription of alcohol as a panacea for 
every ailment, by the unscientific way in which the amount 
taken has been practically left to the patient, and by the 
continued neglect of many doctors to inform themselves 
by experiment or even by serious reading of the chemical 
and physiological effects of this narcotic and irritant 
poison. It is doubtful if more harm has ever been done 
in the name of science than by the eminent physician who 
popularized the port wine treatment of disease, with results 
that generations yet unborn will lament, but lament in vain, 
until under the influence of better fashions and better 
science the physical evil has gradually died out. Who has 
not heard the excuse of the immoderate tippler, “My 
doctor orders me to keep my constitution up by stimulants, 
by some generous (?) wine”? Who has not met with the 
excuse, “I only take it asa medicine”? True, these ex- 
cuses are often known, even by those who depend on them, 
not to be reasons ; true, there is as much dishonesty on 
the part of patients in the use they make of a palatable 
prescription as there is carelessness on the part of doctors 
in the way that prescription is given, its effects watched, 
and its disuse ordered ; yet still the medical grounds for 
or against the use of alcoholic beverages (the question of 


WHAT DOCTORS SAY. 183 


the retention of alcohol as a drug is entirely separate and 
not yet ripe for settlement) must always be seriously 
examined, whatever be our predilections or habits. And 
it is worthy of note that the examination of the properties 
and powers of alcohol has been largely forced on medical 
men by their patients, and perhaps still more by the ex- 
istence and health of those who rarely become their patients. 
It is not so long ago that the medical officers of Insurance 
Societies to a man advised their Boards not to accept the 
proposals of total abstainers, who must, z/so facto, be mori- 
bund or chronic invalids at the best; now the perversity 
of teetotalers in retaining their health and proving their 
comparative longevity has forced such officers to enquire 
most closely into the Temperance of every would-be in- 
surer, and to assent to the declarations of many an actuary 
that from a purely business point of view the life of a 
teetotaler is better than that of a moderate drinker. 
Nothing should more excite our thankfulness than that 
the medical profession has been obliged to study facts 
instead of evolving baseless theories, to minimise the pre- 
scription of alcohol to an extent that almost amounts to 
a revolution in therapeutics, and especially that many have 
studied deeply and spoken as clearly, as strongly, in favour 
of the strictest temperance. The disease of intemperance 
can only be prevented or cured by the co-operation of the 
physician with the priest and the teacher, for it attacks 
the body as well as the spiritual and mental faculties, the 
whole man, in fact, in his tripartite nature. Grace is mighty, 
and prayer guides the hand of Omnipotence, but yet a 
physical disease needs physical remedies, as our’ Lord 
pointed out when He said, “this kind goeth not out but 
by prayer and fasting,’ which latter term may be taken to 
comprehend all physical remedies as prayer would include 
every means of grace. We thank God, therefore, for the 
inestimable advantage given to our work as Temperance 
reformers by the labours and works of such men as Drs. 
Richardson, Carpenter, Kerr, Parkes, Edmunds, Ridge, 
Acland, Clark, Drysdale, and Greenfield ; Professors Miller 
and Bernays, Sir H. Thompson and Sir W. Gull, and we 
pray that their brethren may more, and that speedily, 
cemie to see the responsibility that lies upon them to learn 
exactly the nature and effects of the alcohol they “ex- 


184 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE, 


hibit,” to be more careful in prescribing it, and more care= 
ful when it has been prescribed, that the intended remedy 
does not induce a habit and even a disease worse than that 
it was intended to alleviate or cure, 

But as the evil as well as the good that men do lives 
after them, so, unfortunately, if the medical profession 
were to abandon entirely the prescription of alcoholic 
beverages, and dispense simply the pure drug from their 
toxicological cabinets instead of from the cellars of their 
patients or the public-house, there would remain, for a ~ 
generation at least, the tradition and the acquired habit — 
which would seek to justify the use and even the abuse of | 
alcoholic drinks by the quotation of medical advice, dating | 
from a less enlightened era, and given under different cir- — 
cumstances of health or even to different persons. | 

It is then to aid those who would create a more healthy 
and honest public sentiment in the matter that I have read 
some hundreds of papers or reports of speeches (my ~ 
labour being largely facilitated by the excellent Medical — 
Temperance Journal), and extracted from them brief and — 
pointed utterances on points as to which instruction is 
still obviously needed in the face of the ignorance, pre- 
judice, and interests which exist about the use of alcohol 
in health or sickness, and its effects upon the normal or 
occasional conditions of the human frame. 

These heads of instruction will be on alcohol and health, 
alcohol and .nutriment, alcohol and strength, alcohol and 
warmth, alcohol and digestion, alcohol and the brain, 
alcohol and maternity, alcohol as a medicine, and alcohol 
as a poison. 

Doctors will disagree no doubt as long as doctors exist, 
and my aim is not to give both sides of the question, for 
the simple reason that that side which falls in with the 
inclinations and habits of a nation in which drinking 
customs have held sway in every class is but too well known 
and too eagerly quoted. I shall but attempt to make it 
clear to the most prejudiced or ignorant that our side is 
supported by the clearest testimony of eminent doctors, 
and thus haply to remove a stumbling block from the weak, 
and a cause of reproach from a noble profession whose 
attitude and teaching is but too frequently quoted as a 
justification for innumerable follies and ills) But as one 


ALCOHOL AND HEALTH. 185 


pin with an indubitable point will humble a windbag, how- 
ever solid it may seem, so one clear demonstration of 
Science, one dictum logically deduced, may cause each one 
of the fallacies about the use of intoxicants which are 
popular in both senses of the word to be seen in their true 
colour as absurdities and untruths, until of all the argu- 
ments and reasons for drinking none remain save the last, 
though most honest, refuges of the advocates of alcohol— 
“T like it,” and “It’s the fashion.” 

I would only add that I shall be grateful to any who will 
bring to my notice such additional dicta of medical men 
of the same character and length as those I shall quote, 
and on the points enumerated above, as may have escaped 
myeyes. This, with a view to the collection of the articles 
into a small pamphlet hereafter, which I would have as 
complete as possible. 


VII. Alcohol and Health. Atconot not NECESSARY 
OR BENEFICIAL TO HEALTH. 


“THERE seem no useful effects to be anticipated from 
the use of alcohol in health."—Dys. Parkes. 

“ Alcohol is never beneficial to a person in health.’— 
Dr. H. Lee Norris. 

“People in ordinary health do not require alcohol in any 
form, and are not benefited by it even in very small 
quantities.”—Surg.-Major H. Cayley. 

“A healthy man, with healthy surroundings, not only 

requires no alcohol, but, daily taken as an article of diet, it 
is in the end pernicious."—M/7. H. Weekes. 
_ “Neither spirit, wine, nor malt liquor is necessary for 
health.”—J/usp.-General Sir J. Hall. 

“As for the old opinion that people in health, or living 
in ordinary conditions, could not live or work without wine, 
it is an opinion no careful or thoughtful physician thinks of 
maintaining.”"—Prof. Acland. 

“Upon the whole the human race would be situated just 
as favourably if the use of alcohol did not exist.”—Drv. 
Bardon Sanderson, 

“To a person in good health alcohol is not in the least 
necessary or beneficial; he will do harder and sounder 
work without it.,.—Dr. A. Maudslay. 


186 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 
. 

“Health cannot be benefited by alcohol in any degree.” 
—Dr. A. Clark. . 

“Fermented and distilled liquors are never necessary 
for any purpose, except in certain persons in whom habit 
has created a need of them truly morbid.”—2oyer- 
Collard. : 

“A man or woman who abstains is healthy and safe. 
A man or woman who indulges at all is unsafe. A man 
or woman who relies on alcohol for support is lost.”—Dr. 
B. W. Richardson. . 

“JT have in no case met with a single instance wherein — 
abstinence has exercised a prejudicial influence upon the 
individual in any way.”—Dr. Fergus Ferguson. 

“Disease is much less frequent among teetotalers, and 
disease is much less troublesome.”—J/r. A. J. H. Crespi. 

“A man finds that he enjoys best health when he ab- 
stains altogether from wine and spirits,and drinks plain | 
water.’—Dr. Murchison. ! | 

“There can be no excuse on physical grounds for reject- 
ing the practice of total abstinence.’—Declaration of 43 
Army Doctors in India. 


VIII. A Teetotaler in the Slums. Sy Mr W.S. 
Caine, M.P. 


IN the course of a sermon Mr. Caine related the following 
incident :-— 

“They knew it was sad when a lad was never to be 
found at home; and it proved the necessity of parents 
making their homes as bright and cheerful as possible. 
No harm could come to the boy who loved his home, and 
the girl who loved home would never go wrong. Where 
home was an attraction the devil found it impregnable. 
The chief result of the public-house was to deprive the 
home of its pure family life. Some time ago he was talk- 
ing to Mr. George Russcll, the Under-Secretary of the 
Local Government Board, who told him that he was not 
going to the country that summer, but was going to spend 
his holidays in the slums of London. He asked, in a 
joking way, ‘Is there nothing I can do in the slums for 


THE BEST STIMULANTS. 187 


you?’ He (Mr. Caine) said: ‘Yes, there is. Will you find 
me a teetotaler in the slums?’ Four months afterwards 
Mr. Russell came to him and said he had fulfilled his com- 
mission. He had found a teetotaler, but he lived in a 
bright and cheerful room in one of the most wretched of 
all the slums in London. On inquiring into the cause of 
the cheerful aspect of the room, Mr. Russell was told by 
the wife of the teetotaler that both she and her husband 
had signed the pledge. Once let such people break that 
pledge,” said the preacher, “and it would prove the de- 
struction of all their bright and cheerful homes.” 


IX. The Best Stimulants. 


I was deeply impressed by something which an excellent 
clergyman told me one day, when there was nobody by to 
bring mischief on the head of the narrator. This clergy- 
man knew the literary world of his time so thoroughly that 
there was probably no author of any mark then living in 
England with whom he was not more or less acquainted. 
It must be remembered that a new generation has now 
grown up. He told me that he had reason to believe that 
there was no author or authoress who was free from the 
habit of taking pernicious stimulants, either strong green 
tea or strong coffee at night, or wine, or spirits, or lauda- 
num. The amount of opium taken to relieve the wear and 
tear of authors was, he said, greater than most people had 
any conception of, and all literary workers took something. 
“Why, I do not,” said I; “fresh air and cold water are 
my stimulants.” “TI believe you,” he replied; “but you 
work in the morning, and there is much in that.” I then 
remembered, when I had to work a short time at night, 
a physician who called on me observed that I must not 
allow myself to be exhausted at the end of the day. He 
would not advise any alcoholic wines, but any light wines 
that I liked might do me good. ‘You have a cupboard 
there at your right hand,” said he; “keep a bottle of hock 
and a wineglass there, and help yourself when you feel 
you want it.” “No, thank you,” said 1; “if I took wine, 
it should not be when alone, nor would I help myself toa 


188 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


glass; I might take a little more, till my solitary glass 
might become a regular tippling habit. I shall avoid the 
temptation altogether.” Physicians should consider before 
they give such advice to brain-worn workers, 


X. The Duty of Governments. Sy Tue VEN. 
ARCHDEACON Farrar, D.D., F.R.S. “And He looked for 
judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold 
@ cry.” —ISAIAH V, 7. 


WITHOUT an apology, I shall speak of those questions 
as being essentially religious. We are citizens of no 
mean city, and though, like St. Paul, we were free-born, 
yet with a great price obtained we this freedom—the 
price of agonies and energies, the price of the sufferings, 
the courage, and the blood of our fathers. Get rid, I 
beseech you, of the ignobly feeble notion that when we 
- have observed the proprieties, and scraped up a pittance 
for our families, we have done our duty as men or as 
citizens; or that we are saints, or even true Christians, if 
we have merely adopted a censorious profession, the 
mother of ignorant Pharisaism and the daughter of shiver- 
ing fear. We are not units, made merely to clutch each 
of us at our own plank amid the weltering deluge. We 
are brother men in the great family of God. We are the 
children of an imperial country, which, if we do not im- 
poverish its traditions, and degrade its ideal, may yet bear 
asplendid part in the history of nations. We are heirs of 
a mighty past, rich in liberty and in heroism. As English, 
we speak the tongue of Shakespeare, and hold the faith and 
the morals of Milton. We are the trustees of posterity ; 
we are the children of a pure and holy Church; we are the 
redeemed sons of God, and heirs of Heaven. We must be 
mean indeed if we feel no gratitude for these advantages, 
and derive no inspiration from them. They are lent to us, 
not given, and it is our plain duty to hand on the kindled 
torch of our great empire, with undiminished lustre, to 
those who shall come after us. There is nothing su 
revolutionary, it has been truly said, because there is nothing 
so unnatural and convulsive, as the strain to keep things 
fixed, when all the world is, by the very law of its being, 


THE DUTY OF GOVERNMENTS. 189 


in eternal progress ; and the course of all the evils in the 
world can be traced to that natural, but most deadly, error 
of human indolence and selfishness, that our business is 
to preserve, and not to improve. 

Here, of course, I shall not touch on any question of 
party politics. What I would rather aim at is to press 
home the eternal truths by which all questions of policy 
must be ultimately decided. The saying of the old judge, 
that the Bible is part of the common law of England, may 
now be derided and disputed. It may be stigmatised as 
only a phrase to speak of Scripture as the statesman’s 
manual, yet certain laws there are which it behoves not 
statesmen only, but all citizens, to keep solemnly in mind. 
Laws they are not of to-day, nor of yesterday, but they 
live for ever, and none knoweth whence they dawned. 
Heaven was their birthplace; God is their Author. They 
spurn the force of oblivion. The whirling wheel of time 
cannot destroy them, nor the disdainful cavillings of 
worldlings, Strong are they as adamant; immovable as 
the granite basis of the hills. The nation, no less than the 
man, which stumbles against them, shall be broken, and 
on whomsoever they shall fall, they shall grind him to 
powder. Of these the humblest servant of God may speak 
to the highest sovereign. Such service is above such 
sovereignty. 

My friends, in time of coarse, material prosperity, states 
may perish of slow decay, if men content themselves with 
the passive enjoyment of sordid and spiritless comfort. 
It is not so many years ago since M. Guizot, as Prime 
Minister of France, said, with conscious or unconscious 
cynicism, to the bourgeois of Paris, “ Enrich yourselves ! ” 
Has the spirit of self-enrichment done much for France? 
But when the times are rife with serious problems, then if 
the rich and the privileged dwell on their rights, and 
forget their duties, states may perish, not of slow corrup- 
tion, but of swift catastrophe. We need at this moment 
while yet there is time, the action and the reaction, the 
play, and counter play, of two great forces at their fullest 
power, the force of the individual and the force of society, 
the liberty of the citizens and the strong hand of the state. 
When the individual is passive and paralysed, the vital 
powers of the nation are sapped. When the state is with- 


1go PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


out courage and without initiative, it will be overthrown 
sooner or later in deluge and earthquake. The air and 
the wings are equally needful for the eagle’s flight; and in 
the nation the wings are the individual effort, and the 
Government should be as the controlling and supporting 
air. Take two pictures by way of illustration—Issachar 
and Israel. “Issachar is a strong ass crouching between 
two burdens, and he saw that rest was good, and the land 
that it was pleasant, and he bowed his shoulder to the 
yoke, and became a servant to tribute.” There is passivity 
and serfdom. On the other hand, in Israel “there was no 
king in those days ; every man did that which was right in 
his own eyes.” There is individualism and anarchy. 
Should nations follow individualism, they sink into the 
Issachar condition, they stagnate into impotence, they sink 
into the condition that has been described as atheistic do- 
nothing-ism, the philosophy of the breeches pocket, the 
comfortable, lazy creed of the good man who never, indeed, 
cut a throat or dishonoured a bill, but who ground the 
last stroke out of the puny, pallid children in the factory, 
and defrauded the hireling of his wages. When, on the 
other hand, nations become like Israel under the Judges, 
when states are palsied and the passions of men are let 
loose, there you have the orgies and the madness of 
revolution, the guillotine reeking with the blood of the 
virtuous and the noble, cities blazing with petroleum, and 
tumbrils rolling through their streets. Nations may avert 
these if taken in time. We want men, men who will set 
their faces as a flint against tyranny and against oppres- 
sion, but who will be obedient as children to all 
beneficent and noble laws; men of independent minds 
who let the crowd chatter at them and are silent; God’s 
children by election, God's image by beneficence. On the 
other hand, we want ruling powers which, indifferent to 
the bickering of factious and selfish interests, will maintain 
the weal of peace, and the godliness of the people. We 
want the state to be the Pallas Athene of a Christian land, 
who, while on the one hand she smites down crime and 
anarchy, and cleaves the hoary head of inveterate abuse, 
with the other flings her zgis over the suffering, and pro- 
tects virtue with the terrors of her Gorgon shield. 

It is rather of the State than of the individual that I 


THE DUTY QF GOVERNMENTS. 191 


would speak this morning, and J would point out that 
_ while we would religiously retain what belongs to individual 
liberty, we have a right as citizens that the State do for 
us, at our bidding, things which we have no power to do 
for ourselves. It is the plain duty of governments to pro- 
tect the interests of the poorest and of the weakest who 
are least represented in them, to save us from that deadliest 
and most despicable of all forms of rule, the tyrannies of 
strong and united fraud ; to protect men from the wrongs 
of others, and, if need be, even from the vices of them- 
selves. Men talk of a dazssez-faire policy, but a dazssez-faire 
policy is, in plain English, a do-nothing policy. In other 
words, it is no policy at all. It consists merely in not 
doing, and not letting others do. It is to throw the reins 
loose upon the neck of headstrong selfishness. It is to 
leave us victims to powerful rings of organised monopolists, 
supporting by ill-gotten wealth immoral interests. Those 
who would have government inactive for moral protection 
and for social advancement, stigmatise state control as 
interference, and philanthropic legislation as grandmotherly. 
Well, I pity the man, and I pity the state, that is daunted 
by epigrams. The strongest ruler whom England has 
ever seen was the one whose principle it was to strike 
directly at political evils, regardless of private interests, 
and to supply public needs without reference to prejudice 
or to precedent. Is it, or is it not, true that what is morally 
wrong cannot be politically right? Is it, or is it not, the 
duty of governments to make it easy to do right, and 

dificult to do wrong? If that be grandmotherly, I say that 
such legislation has given us some of the noblest orders in 
the statute-book, that it has been entirely beneficent, and 
entirely Christ-like. It was such legislation which emanci- 
pated hundreds and thousands of miserable slaves. It was 
such legislation which declared that our brave sailors should 
not be sent to sea in floating coffins; that women bent 
_ double when still young should not be harnessed tu trucks 
like beasts of burden in the galleries of our black collieries 
and mines ; that little children should not be blighted 
before their time by ignorance and slavery; that the many 
should not be robbed of rights, eternal and indefeasible, by 
the greed of the few; that the bread of the poor should 
not be scanted for the gains of the farmer; that brutal 


£92 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


sports should not demoralize the callous hearts of the 
multitude ; that the leprosy of impure literature should not 
be disseminated broadcast among corrupt thousands ; that 
gambling houses should not be the portals of ruin and of 
suicide, nor haunts of vileness flaunt themselves like the 
gates of hell. Whether that be grandmotherly legislation © 
or not, I know not, but if it be, I for one prefer it to the © 
legislation of the prodigal and of the publican; I prefer it — 
to the careless legislation which fosters want; to the cruel 
legislation which is indifferent to misery ; to the interested 
legislation which would sacrifice the million to the 
millionaire ; to the unjust legislation, which, while it loudly 
proclaims that the poor have no right to the property of the 
rich, does not proclaim with equal loudness that the rich 
have no right to the property of the poor; to the blind 
legislation which will not cut off the entail of a nation’s 
curse ; to the Moloch legislation, which slays yearly the 
lives of thousands of children, sacrificed to the brutality of 
drunken parents ; to the Mammon legislation, which will 
not ruffle one feather of the gilded plumage, but which is in- 
different to the agony of the dying bird ; to any legislation 
which leaves us stake-holders in a nation’s sin, and therefore 
subject to the ruin of a nation’s expiation. Yes; and if 
the policy of /azssez-faire were indeed adopted and per- 
sisted in, as I trust it never has been, or never will be, then 
one of two things would speedily happen—either the pent- 
up forces of discontent will raise the shout of anarchy, and 
shake all social order to the dust ; or the people, weary of 
empty forms, of wasted hours, of sterile recriminations, of 
party watchwords—weary of a franchise which only mocks 
them with the semblance of power joined to the reality of 
wretchedness—weary, most of all, of a constitution which 
staggers hopelessly beneath the load of its difficulties, with 
no ear to hear, with no heart to sympathize, and with no 
arm to save, will listen at last in time to some strong voice 
which shall rescue them from moral and physical destruc- 
tion, even if that voice shall sound as stern as that of old: 
“Take these things hence!” 

Let me point out two spheres of action in which the 
nation may look to its Parliament to save it from dangers 
which individuals are not strong’ enough to cope with. 
Those dangers are partly physical and partly moral; but 


THE DUTY OF GOVERNMENTS. 195 


the two are inextricably intertwined. The physical evils 
are the result of the struggle for existence—the pressure 
of population, the huge abnormal growth of unwieldy cities, 
the spread of manufactures, the limitations of land, the 
indifference of encroaching selfishness to national rights, It 
has been said that we live by three immaterial things—by 
admiration, hope, and love; and by three material things 
—pure air, pure water, and pure earth. Pure earth. Many 
of us have never possessed, and never will possess, one 
inch of our native soil; not even a corner for our graves. 
So it must be. The good sense of Englishmen will show 
them the utter folly of socialism, and the crime of confisca- 
tion, however plausible the euphemisms under which they 
may be disguised. But we should do well to remember 
that at the back of every social problem lies a social wrong. 
It is not Mr. Henry George, but it is the prophet Isaiah, 
who has said :—“ Woe unto them that join house to house, 
that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may 
be placed alone in the midst of the earth!” It was not 
Karl Marx, but James, the Lord’s brother, who wrote to 
callous oppressors :—“ Go to now, ye rich men, weep and 
howl for the calamities that shall come upon you.” The 
state can and may watch over the rights of the many and 
of the poor. It can, directly or indirectly, discourage the 
aggregation and facilitate the partition of these vast estates, 
which were the ruin of ancient Italy, where one man 
bestrode the narrow earth like a Colossus. It can watch 
jealously at least that open places be not filched away, 
that fields are not absorbed, that commons are not en- 
croached upon, that peasants are not driven from their 
humble tenements, that roadsides are not stolen from them, 
that field paths are not wantonly blocked up, that river 
sides and sea shores, that glens and mountains, the natural 
property of the world, be not greedily monopolised, and 
that, if but few can own, yet all nevertheless can enjoy 
God’s common earth. 

And pure water. Who but Governments are strong 
enough to restore the rivers and streams of England, God’s 
priceless gift to us, to the condition in which some of us 
remember them in our youth, when the thrushes sang amid 
the wild roses which blossomed over their crystal windings, 
as they slipped over shining pebbles or golden sand? It 

1°) 


194 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


is impossible for us; but is it too late for Governments 
to save them from being what most of them have now been 
made—foul ditches of putrescent scum? Is it too late to 
Save our great rivers from being sewers of filthiness, 
in which the fish die, poisoned by the refuse of manufac- 
tures? 

And pure air. Is it impossible to hope any longer that 
what should be the bright, invisible atmosphere, which 
makes it a luxury to breathe the breath of life in these huge 
cities in which so many of us are pent up through life— 
is it too late, is it impossible, for Parliament to save us 
from the foul air amidst which our spirits always falter in 


the mist caused by these noxious gases vomited by privi- 


leged manufactures—which yearly cost you £2,500 merely 
to replace the crumbling away of your new Houses of 
Parliament? Is even the Parliament of the nation power- 
less now to right these wrongs to our teeming multitudes, 
or, as in the Apocalypse, disgusted with the greed of an 
ignoble race, has one angel of God poured forth his vials 
upon the earth, so that the plague spot has broken forth on 
all the worshippers of Mammon; and has another angel 
poured forth his vial on our fountains and rivers of water, 
so that they have been turned into poison ; and has a third 
angel emptied his polluting vial into the air in which we 
gasp, so that over half of England, for many days, men 
breathe nothing but soot, and gaze on nothing but gloom ? 
Often it seems as if the sun were turned for us into black- 
ness, and the moon into blood, before that great and 
terrible day of the Lord. Is it beneath the dignity of 
legislators to toil for these high ends? Would they not 
be more useful than most of the things they do? Or is 
this nation to perish with the curse of its unlawful desires, 
when, as one has said, all the old green places have been 
monopolized, when all the sky is full of smoke, and the 
rivers reek with poison; when forest and stream, and moor 
and meadow, are banned and forbidden; when every gentle 
and timid being of brake and bush, of air and water, has 
been killed because it robbed men of a berry or a fruit ; 
when the earth is one vast mill, whose children hear no 
sound but the hiss of the steam, and know no music but 
the roar of the furnace ; when the old sweet sights, and the 
old, sweet songs, and the old, sweet fall of midsummer 


THE DUTY OF GOVERNMENTS. 198 


showers, and the green of hedgerow buds, and the glow 
of purple heather, and the notes of cuckoo and of cushat, 
and the freedom. of waste and wild, are things dead and 
remembered no more? Then the world, like the Eastern 
king, will perish miserably of famine and of drought, with 
gold in its stiffened hands, and gold upon its “withered 
lips; gold whith can do nothing for it, and mocks it. 
horribly ; gold for which we have bartered peace, and 
holiness, and happiness ; gold that has won but a grave. 

But, besides, are there no moral, no social dangers? I 
shall not ask you whether the condition of the poor is 
better or worse than it was. I only know what it is. None 
of us can plead ignorance of this ; for if we have never seen 
it, we have been told of it of late in hundreds of voices. 
Your leading newspaper has said that the people who live 
in our slums and rookeries, to call them by the hideous 
names with which we are now familiar, are really examples 
of the retrogression of mankind towards savagery, almost 
towards the condition of the brute creation. In their filthy 
habits, their restlessness, their destructiveness, their love for 
strong drink, their cunning, their ferocity, and’ their moral 
obliquity, it is necessary to recognise that they belonged to 
a different type from that which is possessed by reasonable 
men. And remember that in the brutality of these criminal 
classes multitudes of the innocent are dragged down to 
misery. It is not to die, said Thomas Carlyle, or even to 
die hungry, that makes a man wretched, but it is to die 
slowly all his life long with the thought that he lies im- 
prisoned by an infinite injustice. Can we find nothing 
_ serious to think of in the recent speech of one of the most 
eminent men of science, who, having first lived in the 
East-end of London, and then having travelled all round 
the world, deliberately told us that, contemplating the 
supernatural and astonishing deadliness and deadness of 
these poor people’s lives, with no amusement except the 
public-house, with nothing but miserable toil, rewarded by 
slow starvation, he should deliberately prefer to theirs the 
life of a’savage; and that this state of things, if not 
amended, would be a great Serbonian bog, which, in the 
long run, would swallow up the surface crust of our 
civilization, 

Notice too, once more, the boundless superfluity of wealth 


196 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


by which this grim people is touched and jostled, and then — 


say whether the warning voice may not be true which tells 


you that if some jar or shock dislocate the system, the — 
fountains of the great deep will be broken up, and that it is — 


not the deserts and forests as of old, but roadsides and city 
slums which are nursing the barbarians which may be to 


the new civilization what the Hun and the Vandal were © 


to the old. It is idle to say that these terrible evils are 
irremediable, but if they be indeed irremediable be sure that 
they will be fatal. In every country, said a living states- 
man, you find the nation in the cottage; and if the 
light of your legislation does not shine in there, your states- 
manship is a failure, and your system is a mistake. Indi- 
vidual effort, individual beneficence, say rather the love of 
Christ burning in individual hearts, has done something, but 
without state aid it cannot do much more. The social 
dangers are summed up in the words vice and pauperism. 
Every one who knows anything at all about the subject 
tells you, and has been telling you for fifty years ; all your 
judges with one voice, all your police, all your gaolers, all 
who have really mixed among, and seen for themselves, 
the condition of the poor, are telling you, that the chief 
cause, both of vice and of pauperism, is drink. For more 
than a hundred years, good men, stung to the heart by pity, 
have been telling you to stay the plague, and heal the cause 
of drink,—as yet in vain. Here is one thing which you 
might do, you might if you had the heart to do it, and the 
courage and the moral insight to do it; and so save Eng- 
land from what the ablest prince of our Royal house the 
other day designated as the only terrible enemy whom 
England has to fear. You may be deceived by epigrams 
—you may be afraid of wealthy monopolists—you may be 
afraid of custom—you may be paralysed by immoral 
acquiescence in long-continued evils—you may be eager 
ibout political combinations which neither increase our 
happiness nor improve our morals ; but so long as we find 
ourselves surrounding the minimum of strength with the 
glaring maximum of licensed temptation to work the curse 
and ruin of men, will vice multiply and pauperism spread. 
We plead with you for the sake of our country, The masses 
of our poor countrymen have long been pleading with you 
to save them from their miseries, and to save them even 


f 


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THE DUTY OF GOVERNMENTS. 197 


from themselves. Will you once more lift no finger to helg 
them? Which do you really think will make the people 
better, and which do you seriously believe will add to their 
happiness and reduce their degradation ?—the possession of 
some forty-millionth fraction of political power, or some of 
these strong and simple measures, the work of a people 
which fears God, which might rescue them from the in- 
tolerable and interminable malignity of corroding vices. 
Other nations and other empires have fallen each in turn, 
undermined by their own sins, or blasted by their own am- 
bition, They have been choked in blood, or unmanned by 
lasciviousness, or clogged with greed. Where is the cedar 
of Assyria, and the lion of Greece, and the eagle of Rome? 
Did the gold of Spain save her, or the fleet of Venice? 
What has happened to the trampled golden lilies of France? 
And, is England safe except by her faithfulness to the 
eternal morallaw? “Is not Calno as Carchemish? Is not 
Hamath as Arpad? Is not Samariaas Damascus? Shall 
I not,as I have done to Samaria and her idols, so do to 
Jerusalem and to her idols,’—yea, and to England and to 
her idols? 

Two of those idols have to be destroyed, let me but 
mention in conclusion. One is the idol of vested interest 
in national wrongs. Inthe days of the slave trade some 
one said to an abolitionist, “What! would you stand be- 


tween a man and his vested interests?” “I started,’ he 
said, “as if one had trampled on my grave, and exclaimed, 
‘A vested interest in a human being!’” Let it be under- 


stood, once for all, that there can be no vested interests in 

that which is the source of a nation’s ruin, and a nation’s 
wrong. Other selfishness may be as intense, but none is 
so unblushing, because none is so much tolerated as the 
selfishness of monopolists claiming a vested interest in 
public infamy. 

And the other is the idol of spurious liberty, which thinks 
that freedom consists in unlimited licence to do wrong, and 
that we ought to be allowed to do what we will though 
the result may be the injury of our neighbours. The liberty 
to do wrong is the mother of bondage. No man is free, 
and no nation is free, which is free from righteousness, and 
a slave tovice. The impulse of appetite is slavery, and the 
obedience to salutary restraint is the only liberty. Till 


198 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE, 


England learns this, so long as her liberty is the spuriou: 
idol of selfish individual licence, her glory is built upon th 
sand, . 
“Who are the free? 

They who have scorned the tyrant and his rod, 

And bowed in worship unto none but God ; 

They who have made the conqueror’s glory dim, 

In chain, in cell, though manacled in limb. 

Unwarped by prejudice, unawed by wrong, 

Friends to the weak, and fearless of the strong ; 

They who will change not with the changing hour, 

The self-same men in peril as in power ; 

True to the law of right, in spite of frown, 

To grant another’s as maintain their own ; 

Foes to oppression, wheresoe’er it be— 

These are the proudly free?” 


This is what the sons of England should be. This is 
what the High Court of Parliament, at this time assembled, 
might help to make them. Thus, and thus only, can all 
things be so ordered, as we pray by “their endeavours, 
upon the best and surest foundations, that peace and — 
happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety, may be 
established among us for all generations,” 


XI. The Law of Temperance Higher than the 
Rule of Total Abstinence. Ay Rev. Harry 
Jones, M.A., Vicar of Great Barton, Prebendary of Sz. 
Pauls. 


DRUNKENNESS must be reckoned as a great social curse 
of this land. It is the greatest which can be anywise freely 
spoken of. It is so notoriously mischievous an evil that no 
one ventures to plead for or defend it. Though excuse 
may sometimes be found for his indulgence, that excess in 
drink which makes a man for the time into another sort of 
being, not to be trusted as man, unfit for speech or act, for 
work or play, can never be deemed right. The worst 
drunkard, the man who deliberately intoxicates himself, 
would not like to be judged by what he said and did while 
he was drunk, and thus he virtually admits drunkenness to 
be a state of degradation, or humiliating ecstasy. He may, 
indeed, so indulge his appetite as to lose all power of self- 


TEMPERANCE HIGHER THAN ABSTINENCE. 199 


control, and rapidly excuse his act, when the thought of 
restraint presents itself, or he may have become such a 
slave to the repeatedly-tasted sensation as to court and 
hail its recurrence greedily, but intervals of sobriety arrive 
in which even he curses his own curse. 

No doubt there is excuse for some whose homes are 
narrow and foul. Their blood is starved. Their morning 
pulse pleads importunately for help. People who have 
every comfort about them, who eat good food and breathe 
good air in roomy houses, should be the last to rail at a 
poor man who is so depressed by unwholesome monotony 
of business and continuous home stench as to seek relief in 
alcohol, and so contract the habit of drinking to excess. 
But even in this case, if he is thus mastered, he is willing 
to allow that excess brings mischief along with it. How- 
ever bad a home may be, drunkenness makes it worse. 
However trying a trade may be, it becomes harder to 
follow when a man has weakened himself by intoxication. 
I wish there were a mission against the material misery of 
poor homes, and the needlessly exhausting circumstances 
of some trades. I wish men would totally abstain from 
any agreement with a landlord who did not produce a 
warrant from an accepted officer of health that his house 
was in good sanitary condition. As it is, many sin and 
suffer in ignorance, and, both among the rich and poor, 
need to have their eyes opened to their defiance of God’s 
laws of health. 

It is not my purpose now to attempt the drawing of a 
repulsive picture which shall display the drunkard’s home 
and household, nor to dwell upon the mischief done to his 
business, credit, and health. Examples of misery and ruin 
arising from excess in drink, in every class of society, are 
too familiar to all. In each man’s circle of acquaintance 
there are sure to be some who have destroyed their power, 
position, and prospects by habits of intemperance. 

I would, however, notice one form of excess which is 
widely committed, and grievously harmful, but which 
does not cause the same shameful offence as when a man 
gets openly and grossly drunk, and in that condition is 
a spectacle of humiliating degradation. I refer to that 
species of sot which does not drink enough at any one 
time to destroy consciousness, but into which the stream 


200 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE, 


of alcohol is continually trickling. Here the man takes 
“drops” rather than draughts. He is not caught wholly 


incapable. He is able, after a fashion, and for a while, to — 


give attention to his business. He does not create a 
riotous uproar. He is not seen reeling in the streets. 
But silently, selfishly, almost respectably, he is poisoning 
the powers of his life. Here is a prevailing form of intem- 
perance, which, though it may not .shock society with 
examples of disgusting helplessness or brutal violence, is 
yet a great social curse, and may really be classed under 
the head of drunkenness as well as the more degrading 
forms of this evil. 

It is not to be wondered at that associations as well as 
individuais have arisen so profoundly penetrated with a 
sense of the mischief that comes from excess in drink as to 
lose all patience with the matter, and distinctly to affirm 
that no real cure can be found for the evil except in total 
abstinence from all kind and strength of alcoholic mix- 
ture. This is, anyhow, intelligible ground to take; and 
such as are not total abstainers are able, honestly enough, 
to apprehend and honour the motive of those who look at 
the evil in question as it appears to the advocate of com- 
plete prohibition. He should be treated with respect, not 
ridicule. Of course the man who rules his own life and 
tries to rule that of others by hard and fast lines, and is 
occasionally unscrupulous in the importunity with which 
he seeks for proselytes to his inflexible regulations, is likely 
sometimes to find himself in a position which seems absurd 
to others, and which may be allowed to provoke a smile 
in them; but genuine total abstinence is no mere laughing 
matter. 

Some men cannot be temperate. They have gradually 
lowered themselves to a state in which the merest taste of 
alcohol drives them to break down all purpose of modera- 
tion, however sincere. But they can bring themselves 
wholly to bar their lips against its entrance. And they 
are obviously much helped. by such societies as I have 
alluded to. The power of sympathy is incalculable. A 
man who has been drinking to excess, and cannot mod- 
erate his cups, though he may be able to put them aside 
altogether, finds the performance of his resolution easier 
as he is joined in the effort by men of like weakness with 


TEMPERANCE HIGHER THAN ABSTINENCE. 201 


himself. Possibly, even, he cannot alone unaided pass 
from excess into abstinence any more than into temperance, 
though the former be the easier step of the two. Then he 
is much helped by the hand of such as had fallen, but 
afterwards stood upright. Anyhow, it is a great protection 
for him to belong to a society where he is supported by all 
the members in his determination to have nothing whatever 
to do with the power which had overcome and humiliated 
them and him. If he finds it better to desert, than to dis- 
obey the tempter, he feels his determination more prac- 
ticable when shared by an army of recusants. Thus, 
though I look on temperance as a higher condition of life 
than that which peremptorily denies every one the use of 
any stimulant whatever, lest it should be used to excess, 
all reasonable men must admit that total-abstinence 
societies are most valuable as an escape for the intemperate 
who cannot pass from excess into moderation. We may 
be thankful that they exist, though we may be radically 
convinced of the unfairness with which some insist on 
thrusting their treatment on the sound as well as on the 
sick. However, fortunately, all is not fanaticism which 
fanatics have laid hold of. 

Total abstinence societies, moreover, not only find a 
harbour of refuge for the sot, but they are national protests 
against a great national sin; for though, no doubt, if the 
truth could be told, more would be found to be laid at the 
door of alcohol than it deserves, it is often perverted into 
an engine of terrible mischief, and drunkenness may truly 

be called a great national sin. Against this, associations 
of total abstainers, feeling safe only in abstinence, are 
national protests. They are historical reproductions. They 
represent, in our day, the religious societies of the early 
and middle ages. In those times there was an abundance 
of open licentiousness and glaring social depravity which 
it is not easy for some to realize now—though society be 
not yet purifed. Thus there arose bands of men and 
women who virtually said, “ We will deny ourselves all the 
enjoyments of domestic life. We will vow celibacy. We 
will wholly shut ourselves off from an evil world. Common, 
even home, society is so degraded that we will withdraw 
from it altogether. The family is so tainted, the honour 
of woman is so insecure, that we will deny ourselves the 


PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE, 


pleasures of family life. We will stand apart from out 
fellows; mateless, childless. We will drop even ou 
names, and be brothers and sisters in a separate and pe- 
culiar sense. Thus will we fight against excess. Thus, 
vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked, will we 
make a stand, and, instead of attempting to live in do- 
mestic purity, deny ourselves all domestic intercourse, and 
band ourselves together against that ordinary social life 
which has become full of degrading abuses.” 4 

This was, really, the protest made by the monks and 
nuns of early ages ; and while society was roughly impure 
and unsafe, we appreciate this form of remonstrance and 
escape, involving, as it often did, much self-denial. We 
may think that households, sturdy in their pureness, might 
have been better protests; and indeed they have shown 
greater vitality; they have survived long after the dis-' 
appearance of religious houses. But these last did a grand 
work, They made a strong protest till the day came when 
they were bound to pass away ; in some instances exhibit- 
ing the very kinds of impurities from which they were 
created to provide an escape, and indulging in excesses” 
which it was their original mission to restrain or make 
impossible. 

Now I look on associations of total abstainers as occupy-_ 
ing, in the present day, a similar place in the community 
to that claimed by the early religious houses, and really - 
filled by them whilst they remained pure and self-denying. 
They afford an escape for such as cannot trust themselves, | 
and they give scope to the zeal which sometimes passes _ 
into fanaticism, but for which, in every people, there should” 
be working room. Teetotallers are the real modern monks 
and nuns. They are the present conspicuous takers of life- 
long vows. Still, though we may credit them with a keen” 
perception of social abuses and a certain self-denial, and 
though they hold out a hand to such as struggle in the 
slough of excess, my ideal of an excellent world is not_ 
composed entirely of them, any more than of monks and 
nuns. For that which isa wise rule and precaution for 
some must not be forced into a law for all. I repeat that 
a nation of total abstainers, with not one temperate man 
among them, is not the highest ideal of national excellence, 
A wholly temperate people, having realized that dominion 


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TEMPERANCE HIGHER THAN ABSTINENCE. 203 


ver the fruits of the earth which God gave to man, is 
‘really the loftiest aim of humanity. Indeed, a nation 
‘entirely ruled by, and obedient to, an imperative law, 
excluding, eg. the use of any stimulant, would, I fear, 
endanger that perception of tolerance which marks national 
health. Indeed, we have an example, not altogether wide 
of the mark, in the Turks. They are a nation of professed 
total abstainers. They are also fanatics. Probably their 
fanaticism is deepened because they have sought to govern 
themselves by rules and regulations instead of great prin- 
ciples capable of adaptation and application to the ex- 
perience of years and the discoveries of time. 

One of the risks that threaten the future of any societies 
which take some stiff social rule as the basis of their exis- 
tence is that of their becoming radically intolerant. They 

are in danger of becoming so pleased with and proud of 
their exclusiveness as to lose their original singleness of 
character and spirit of self-sacrifice. They may become 
puffed up, and eventually spoiled, like the religious houses 
I have spoken of. It is possible to exchange carnal in- 
‘dulgence for spiritual pride, and then the man or the 
society comes clearly under the warning “ Let him that 
thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” Then the 
old devil that was turned out possibly transforms himself 
and returns with fresh power of mischief in his train. 

In short, no mere va#/e can be laid down for all time, and 
very seldom for the whole of a man’s life. A rule, however 
severe, may be recognised as useful and wholesome for a 
season, like that given by St. Paul for the conduct of a 
particular society in which he said that even marriage was 
unadvisable; but there is a risk in the procedure of all 
‘restrictive associations, whatever purpose or aim they set 
before themselves. They certainly call marked public 
“attention to the danger of excess. They help the weak to 
‘escape it. They may be and are useful for a time, but 
cannot, without eventual loss of true Christian liberty, be 
made bodies of perpetual obligation. They do their work. 
They are corporate protests against popular evil. They 
are refuges for the weak, but must not be made into prisons 
for the strong. They provide wholesome restraint for such 
“as cannot restrain themselves, but must not be forged into 
chains for those who are capable of freedom. They assert 


204 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


that certain excesses are intolerable, but they themselve 
must not be allowed to grow into centres of intolerance. 

There is a higher course than the complete prohibitior 
of anything that is easily capable of abuse; I mean the 
law of Temperance, which applies not merely to the use 
of drink, but of all that God has given to man. All ou 
tastes, appetites and passions are obviously implanted in 
to be exercised. There is no shame in the possession and 
employment of our bodily senses. Shame comes in with 
their abuse. We become degraded as we do not contro, 
them, but allow them to control us. They are given to be 
our servants, not our masters. Cases may arise in which 
it is needful to take the most extreme measures with af 
appetite which the man feels to be too strong for him 
But the man who has power is bound to exercise that 
power. If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast i 
from thee; but surely do not pluck it out unless it be a 
cause of offence, though others so look on what they ough 
not as to deserve blindness. If thy hand offend thee, cut 
it off and cast it from thee; but remember that the ma 
thus saved is after all, at best, a maimed man. It is well 
to save the whole body at the loss of so precious a gift of 
God as the eye or the hand, but it is better to use the eyé 
and hand as God would have them used. It is well to 
save the ship at the cost of the cargo, but it is better ta 
bring both into the haven where you would be. 

The true saint, the righteous man, is he who uses body, 
soul and spirit truly, righteously. Holiness is not eccen 
tricity. It is not best seen in exclusiveness or asceticism. 
The body fulfils its purpose best when had in such subjec- 
tion that it obeys all orders, not when it is, in some respects, 
so prohibited from obedience as to be therein incapable of 
disobedience. You may keep a man from some kinds of 
mischief by locking him up, and occasionally he may be so 
mischievous that he must be locked up. But we do not 
imprison a man who has done no wrong for fear lest he 
may be tempted to be hurtful. It is absurd to say that 
because A burns his fingers at the fire, B may not be per= 
mitted to warm his hands. But if he cannot be kept, of 
cannot keep himself from burning his fingers, he had bettet 
sit in the cold. We demand liberty of action for those wha 
have not abused their freedom. That is the great law, and 


4 


TEMPERANCE HIGHER THAN ABSTINENCE. 203 


Brcty it holds in the case of those who use any of God’s 
gifts in moderation. The knife is for the diseased, not for 
the whole ; medicine is for the sick, not for the sound. This 
is common sense and Christian truth. “I came not,” said 
— “to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” 
We will give our measure of respect—some good men 
-are able to feel more of it than others—to those who, in 
| all sincerity, forego the legitimate use of anything because 
they think they ought so to deny themselves, and that the 
cause of humanity” is eventually benefited by their self- 
denial. If a man thinks so, let him bravely live up to his 
thought. But let us admit the presence and force of a yet 
higher thought and deeper conviction, and believe that a 
“man who rules himself by the great principles of righteous- 
“ness and temperance, and looks to God for light and strength 
; so to live, is really in a higher condition of life, both as a 
“man, and an example. Possibly he may be flouted, 
especially by the religious world, as merely self-indulgent. 
: Thus Jesus was sneered at when the question of total 
abstinence was talked of in His day : “ Behold” the people 
said “a man gluttonous and a winebibber.” And He felt 
the sneer. He always suffered when tried. He was even, 
on a rare occasion, tempted—for the taunt was specious— 
to defend Himself with the retort “But Wisdom is justified 
‘of her children.” We may, indeed, believe that such as 
would honestly use this liberty of Christ in the conduct of 
_ their own lives are thus justified. 
_ But as weclaima higher state than subjection to any code 
‘of expediency, as we strive to rise above the materialistic 
’ rule “touch not, taste not,” let us recollect that we claim a 
state which is very high indeed. It is not the easier course. 
‘To some it is the strait path, while to others the life of rules 
j is the broad way. It is simpler, and may be easier to kill 
than to command; and sometimes the suicide of an 
appetite is needful. But power over the whole being is 
best ; it is nearest to the measure of the stature of Christ, 
whose liberty is not spiritual licence, but such freedom from 


mere ceremonialism as enables us to know and do the 
will of God among the manifold temptations to intempers 
ance, in word and deed, which surround us all. 


PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


XII. Individual Responsibility. By THe Ven 
ARCHDEACON Farrar, D.D., F.R.S. “ How long shall th 
land mourn ?”—JER. xil. 4. 


THE thoughts of us all are, probably, more or less ex 
ercised with that shocking series of crimes which horrifie 
and agitated us yesterday afternoon. The attempts o 
these dynamitards are one of the most frightful signs of th 
times. In their aimless malignity, in their atrocious reck 
lessness, in the extent of alarm and of burning indignatio 
which they kindle, in the brutality of hatred which the 
exhibit, in the deadliness of criminal insult to the Majes 
of England who has desired with all her heart to be jus 
and generous to their country, they are the crimes not o 
men but of human fiends. These cold-blooded murderers 
of the innocent are the shame and abhorrence of mankind, 
the common enemies of all the race. God has over-ruled 
and frustrated the possible results of conspiracies so 
devilish ; but some of the blackest crimes which history 
record, look pale before the insane wickedness of these. 
Whatever else may be their message they surely call upon 
us as a nation to watch and be sober, to seek God while 
He may be found, to repent in dust and ashes for our sins, 
I cannot now speak further of these. It is my duty this 
morning to plead the claims of the Church of England 
Temperance Society, and that means that I must try to 
bring before you once more the deadly evils which are now 
being wrought in this land, and which for more than a 
century have been wrought on this land, by its national 
temptation of drink, by its national sin of drunkenness, | 
My task is neither an easy nor a pleasant one—not on 
because I have often had to speak on this subject before ; 
not pleasant, because it never can be pleasant to touch on 
facts which fill one of the darkest pages of human ex- 
perience. On such a subject I have nothing new to tell 
you. All eyes may read, all hearts estimate, the awful 
evidence which is accumulated day by day in the records 
of misery and crime. It might well seem as if, on this” 
subject, the conscience of the nation had become hard with 
a terrible callosity, and needed the probing of some terrible © 
calamity ; as if the day of warning had passed ineffectu- 


i 


1 etna 


. INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY. 207 
ally by, and nothing remained but to await the day of 
retribution. 
i 1. To trace the effects of drink—to set before you the 
_ issue and outcome of our present system, with its making 
of ill deeds by the sight of means to do them ; to watch the 
_ ever widening ripples of fire on this great lake of ruin—we 
_need never, alas! go beyond the limits of our own parish. 
People who talk of “exaggeration” in this matter talk 
with inexcusable ignorance. The evils are always close 
beside us, too glaring and too terrible to be ignored. Here, 
even in your own parish of 4,000 souls, under the shadow 
of the Abbey, under the shadow of the Houses of Parliament, 
in the course of a few short years I have seen in drink and 
_ drunkenness—again and again, and day after day—the 
direct cause of the most foul brutality, and the most 
amazing wretchedness. I have seen widows who have 
_ become widows through drink, and children fatherless 
through drink, and homes desolate through drink, and 
_ suicides, and murder, and deaths by delirium tremens, and 
_ the sacrifice of children, and brutal assults of husbands on 
their wives, and sons on their mothers, and pecuniary loss, 
and individual ruin, and spiritual wreck, and family de- 
_ struction, and social degradation, and places where human 
beings live made worse than the lairs of wild beasts—and 
' all through drink! And to know what drink and the 
drink system is doing in England, you must multiply by 
hundreds of thousands this which is daily going on within 
_ the limits of a single parish, until you have a festering 
_ mass of crime, lunacy, and despair, and guilt, and disease, 
-and anguish such as no imagination can conceive and no 
tongue name—a festering mass of sin, and shame, and 
curse ; which your own Prime Minister has told you pro- 
duces results more deadly, because more continuous, than 
those of war, famine, and pestilence combined. And 
- against this evil demon which glares in the midst of us, 
and daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, in our very sight, slays 
silently, yet with intolerable and interminable malignity, 
its tens of thousands of miserable victims—against this 
evil spirit, against this pestilent and rotten system, thou- 
- sands have appealed, There is scarcely a Judge on the 
_ Bench who has not told the nation in his most solemn 
tones—there is scarcely a Recorder, or Prison Chaplain, of 


208 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


Vicar of any large parish, who has not emphatically de- 
clared, that the present drink system, and its reckless 


multiplication of public-houses, means on a vast scale the — 
injury of the community; and yet, year after year, and © 
decade after decade, not a finger is lifted to provide and — 


adequate remedy, till even a fool can see that the pleasant 


vices of the nation are being turned into her terrible and — 
cruel scourge ; and it has come to this—that England must © 


amend her ways—that she must get rid of this curse and 
crime, or she must gradually perish by the class of paupers 


and criminals who are poisoning her national life, and who, ~ 
so long as our present drink system continues, will remain ~ 


untouched by the amenities of civilization and much more 
by the influences of religious faith. 

2. I cannot express—I never have been able to express 
—half so forcibly as it should be done, the results which 
force themselves upon my mind from the long and re- 
peated observation of the universal horror and destruction 
caused not here only, but in India, in Africa, in Australia, 
in America, in the islands of the Pacific, all over the world, 
alike of civilization and barbarism, by this master fiend of 
Intemperance. From London, from Liverpool, from 
Glasgow, from Dublin, from New York, from San Fran- 
cisco, from Melbourne, from the Mauritius, from Mada- 
gascar, alike from Scandinavia and from Switzerland, 
alike from the banks of the Congo, and of the Hudson, 
rise the groans of the ruined and the perishing against this 
Moloch, on whose altar we offer as holocausts the bodies 
and the souls of men for whom Christ died. The evidence, 
if only you would take the trouble to regard it, is immense, 
accumulated, damning. The defenders and monopolists of 
the drink system cannot refute it—never attempt to refute 
it. They know that there is not a cask of the ardent 
spirits which they sell which does not contain in it a freight 
of potential misery, and which may not do, more effectually 
than any other fiend could do it, the work of hell. They 
rely on paltry sophisms about liberty and the rights of the 
minority. Liberty! as if liberty meant the unlimited 
power of doing wrong! Liberty! as though liberty meant 
the leaving defenceless of poor besotted victims who have 
palsied the very will to protect themselves! The rights of 
the minority! as though, in these hard days, the rights of 


| 
: 


INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY. 209 


the minority included the right to burden the sober, the 


honest, and the thrifty, with the intolerable burdens en- 


tailed upon them by the crime, the infamy, and the 


_wretchedness to which they inevitably doom the weakest 


and the worst. You might as well talk of protecting the 
vested interests of a cancer, as protecting the existing con- 


_ dition of a system which, in the language of the President 


of one of its own Defence Leagues, gives us at least 64,000 
too many, out of our 107,337 licensed public-houses, of 
which he describes some as “seething hells of vice, immor- 
ality, and crime.” Every one is crying out that trade is 
depressed ; that it is hard even for honest men to get a 
living. Why is it hard? I will tell you with confidence 
one reason. lt is because we have to support in the 
United Kingdom 1,000,000 paupers, of which very few 
would have been paupers but for drink. It is because the 
nation yearly spends in drink a sum which would be 
enough to give each of these 1,000,000 paupers an annuity 
of £100a year. It is because the working classes alone 
spend at least 436,000,000 every year—as much as all that 
they pay for rent—in drink. Talk of luxury! The de- 
magogue and the socialist rail at the luxury of the rich; 
and all luxury is an evil; and the days are coming, yea, 
have now come, when the duty of perfect simplicity and 
stern self-denial will be incumbent on every class of the 
community. But I, who have often spoken plainly enough 
of the faults of the rich, declare that their luxury is in no 
respect so deadly and so outrageous as that of the drunken 
poor. There is many a working man in these streets, many 
a cabman, many a labourer, who spends, every day of his 
life, on drink, a sum which I could not afford, and which I 
should think it criminally luxurious and disgracefully 
extragavant in myself to spend. And when these drinkers 
and drunkards thus poison their very lives and their very 
souls by wallowing in the depths of self-indulgence, they 
will come and clamour for charities, and we, out of the 
sweat of our brow, shall have to pay for the prisons which 
punish these atrocities, and the workhouses in which they 
end their worthless and wasted days. Here is a specimen 
—one of hundreds. At the police court a married woman 
(and the case is not at all uncommon) makes her sixty- 
second appearance for drunkenness and wilful damage ; she 
P 


210 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


is the daughter of a man now in the workhouse, who has 


undergone more than I00 terms of imprisonment for 
drunkenness, and whose single family of shame and worth- 


lessness has cost the ratepayers of his parish over £1,000. — 


We pay this money, thus miserably wasted, and who profits 


by the manufacture of these wretched drunkards? Some 


one, I suppose, must profit by, some must gain their wealth 
from, a system which to many means childhood without 
innocence, youth without shame, manhood without honour ; 
from a system which involves the plunder of many a home, 
and the starvation of many a little one; which ministers, 
in some at least of its patrons, to every vile and vicious 
passion and propensity; which makes drunkards, and 
thieves, and embezzlers, and gamblers, and wife-beaters 
and murderers ; which brutalises and degrades, which de- 
bauches, impoverishes, and injures, if not (as a leading 
American newspaper has said) all who are brought into 
contact with it, yet the multitudes who succumb to its 
temptation and become its victims. The prosperity of 
the drink trade means the misery of the people by which 
it thrives. 

3. In these later days tens of thousands of Englishmen 
and of English women, and a very large number of the 
Clergy of all denominations, have become total abstainers, 
and most of them have become so because they hate to 
have anything to do with that which, from the days of 
Noah down to this day, has proved so blighting a curse 
to millions of their fellow men. They have become total 
abstainers because they believe that any form of alcohol 
is needless for those in health, and because they can furnish 
proofs to show that, while their main wish is to help and 
influence others by their example, they themselves, in 
every normal case, gain rather than lose by total absti- 
nence—gain in purse, in health, in strength, in longevity, 
in clearness and peace of mind. But I would remove a 
misconception. We who are abstainers do not dictate to 
others; to the untempted, to the old, to those who are in 
weak health, to all we say—-With your moderate use of 
stimulants we have neither the right nor the wish in any 
way to interfere. Only this we say, that we do not repent 
of our decision, because we know that tens of thousands, 
and in the world’s history millions of mankind, have had 


INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY. 211 


to rue the effects of drink in their own persons, and in the 
persons of those whom their example has influenced. I 
will give you an instance of each kind. Through one 
single common lodging house, in one of the London slums 
through which men and women file into the workhouse, 
recently passed a paymaster in the Royal Navy, a Cam- 
bridge man, a master of the hounds who had once inherited 
a fortune, a physician’s son (himself a doctor), a Sunday 
School Superintendent, a member of the Stock Exchange, 
a clergyman who had taken high honours, the brother of 
the Vicar of a large London Parish, the brother of a scholar 
of European reputation, whose wife also was drinking her- 
self to death, and whose three beautiful children were 
rescued by friends from a miserable den in the neighbour- 
hood—themselves, alas! but too likely to suffer from the 
awful heredity of crime. So much for personal peril in all 
classes. And is example nothing? A father tells us how 


he once started alone to climb a steep and perilous hill, 
purposely choosing a time when his children were at play, 


and when he thought that they would not notice his ab- 
sence. He was climbing a precipitous path, when he was 
startled by hearing a little voice shout, “ Father, take the 
safest path, for I am following you ;” and on looking down 
he saw that his little boy had followed him, and was 
already in danger; and he trembled lest the child’s feet 
should slip before he could get to them, and grasp the 
warm little hand. “Years have passed since then,’ he 
writes, “but though the danger has passed the little fellow's 
cry has never left me. It taught me a lesson, the full 


: force of which I had never known before. It showed me 


the power of our unconscious influence, and I saw the 
terrible possibility of our leading those around us to ruin, 
without intending or knowing it, and the lesson I learnt 
that morning I am anxious to impress upon all to whom 
my words may come.” Again I ask, Is example nothing? 
Let me give you another instance. The other day ata 
meeting a clergyman got up and won the usual applause 
by the usual deplorable platitudes about alcohol being a 
good creature of God and so forth. When he had ended, 
there rose in the meeting an old white-headed man who 
said, “I once knew a fine youth who had been persuaded 
to become a total abstainer; one day he went to the 


212 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


house of a clergyman, who told him that total abstinence 
was fanaticism and I know not what. The young man 
thought that the clergyman must be right; he began to 
drink ; for him, as for thousands of others, it was impossible 
to be moderate ; he died in a few years of delirium tremens 
—a wasted life. The clergyman who spoke thus,” added 
the old man, “was the gentleman who has just addressed 
you ; the young man ”—and here his voice was broken by 
a choking sob-—“ the young man was my only son.” 

4. Well, then, to all who feel themselves safe, whose 
habits are formed, whose years have passed their zenith, I 
do not say a word about total abstinence; but to you young 
men, and young women, of the poorer classes especially, I 
do say—with all the strength of my convictions, and with 
any authority which my office gives me, to you I do say, 
plainly and distinctly, you cannot do a better, a wiser, or a 
safer thing ; you cannot do anything which would be more 
likely to save you, or some about you, from peril, shame, 
and misery hereafter; you cannot do anything which 
would be more likely to secure you a more honourable 
life, and a more happy home, a filled purse, a clear head, 
a more perfect health, a more untroubled peace. Life is 
full of temptation which you cannot avoid, but there is one 
awfully blighting and destroying temptation which you 
can avoid with perfect ease—it is the temptation to drink, 
If any interested person talk to you about liberty, say that 
you will part on the very cheapest term possible with the 
liberty to destroy yourselves. There is not a doctor, how- 
ever inimical to total abstinence, who, if he did not say 
to you, in the words of Sir Andrew Clark, “Fly from the 
enemy of the race,” would not at least tell you “that if 
you eat well and sleep well you do not need strong drink, 
and are better without it.” I would say it, especially to 
all of you who are servants, and to all of you who belong 
to the poorer classes, and the working classes. To suppose 
that beer or spirits is necessary, either to your health or 
your work, is the merest delusion. It is not necessary. It 
has been proved again and again that the very best work, 
and the work which requires the severest strain, whether 
mental or bodily, can not only be done without it, but 
done better without it. Whether you be youth or maiden I 
say to you, Never enter the door of a public-house. Never 


INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY. 213 


marry any one who drinks. If you are fond of drink give 
it up for your own sake; if you are not fond of drink give 
it up for the sake of others. If you are fond of drink give 
it up now, and at once, for good habits must be gradually 
built up, but bad habits can only be blown up; and no 
moral dynamite can be too strong with which to blow 
them up. If you are fond of drink, or getting fond of 
drink, even if you have never actually disgraced your man- 
hood or your womanhood by the loathsome infamy of 
drunkenness, then I say to you, in God’s Name and as 
God’s message, if you do not want a diseased and degraded 
life, if you don’t want to hand down to your children after 
you the seeds of your disease and degradation, if you don’t 
want to drift from the street to the slum, and from the 
slum to the workhouse, or to the felon’s dock, or to the 
cell of the lunatic, or to the grave of the suicide; if you 
do not want to become one of the fresh recruits in the 
miserable army of dishonoured drunkards, who, from 
generation to generation, ruin their own life and make 
terrible their own death—then come this very day to the 
Vestry after the service, either this morning or this even- 
ing, and I will give you the pledge of total abstinence, in 
God’s name; which, if you keep it, by God’s grace sought 
in prayer, and strengthening the concentrated resolution 
of your own manhood, may save you from one at least of 
earth’s self-chosen and preventible evils, which might 
otherwise bring fatally upon you the wrath to come. 

5. For let me give you but one or two illustrations of 
what drink means ; what drink, which is always, of course, 
begun in moderation, has been to millions, and therefore 
may be to you, or to some of those whom you most dearly 
love. 

What does drink often mean to ¢he zndividual? Here 
is a passage, given me by a parishioner, copied from a 
paper found in the case of an old watch :—“ Drunkenness 
expels reason, drowns the memory, defaces beauty, dimin- 
ishes strength, inflames the blood, causes internal, external, 
incurable wounds, is a witch to the senses, a devil to the 
soul, a thief to the purse, the beggar’s companion, a wife’s 
woe, children’s misery, the picture of a self-murderer and 
a beast, who drinks to others’ good health, and robs him- 
self of his own.” And here is a passage from a recent 


814 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


book upon taxation :—“ The gin palace,” says Mr. Dudley 
Baxter, “allures its throng of monomaniacs, Emaciated, and 
in rags, the drunkard gulps down the wages which should 
have supported his children, calling for glass after glass, 
till his earnings are exhausted, and then staggers off to a 
poverty-stricken home to wreak his madness upon his 
wife. Thousands and tens of thousands are merely fun- 
nels for drink, and divide the sweat of their brow between 
the distiller and the State.’ “Mere funnels for drink.” 
Could there be a reproach more infamous for men made 
in the dignity of God’s image, with the sign of their Re- 
demption marked visibly upon their foreheads? Will any 
of you young men or young women who hear me, will you 
be hereafter of the unhappy wretches whom our present 
drink traffic reduces into a thing so abject as a mere fun- 
nel for drink? 

To society. All history has taught us that there can be 
no direr curse to a nation than a criminal and pauper 
class at once vicious and miserable. Now that is just the 
class that drink creates. Here are some actual scenes, 
They will horrify you; yes, but can there be a more shock- 
ing hypocrisy than to be horrified at things which are 
going on almost at your very doors, and to be too finely 
fastidious, too delicately reserved, too daintily sympathetic 
even to hear them mentioned? Is it not shocking that 
you should dislike these slovenly, unhandsome things to 
come between the wind and your nobility, and yet not 
only not throw the whole force of your influence into the 
cause of those who would die to amend them, but not even 
lift one finger to help them? A few months ago all 
London was ashamed at the bitter cry of the outcast, and 
there were Royal Commissions of Princes, Cardinals, and 
millionaires to improve the housing of the poor. Why, 
Temperance workers had not only been telling you for 
fifty years about the infamous housing of the poor, but 
they had also told you the cause ; and until you are brave 
enough and wise enough to cut off the cause, we tell you 
from the beginning that your efforts are foredoomed to 
miserable failure. Leave the cause, and you will never 
appreciably alter the horrible effects. 

Again I quote the testimony of an eye-witness :—“ More 
than one-fourth of the daily earnings of the denizens of 


INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY. art 


the slums goes over the bars of the beer shops and the 


gin palaces. On a Saturday night in a particular thorough- 


_ fare there are three corner public-houses which make as 


much money as the whole of the other shops on both 
sides of the way put together. Enter the gin shops and 
you will see them crammed—labourers drinking away the 
wages that ought to clothe their little ones; women 


_ squandering the money which would purchase food—for 


lack of which their children are dying.” There is cause, 
here are effects: ‘‘ Turn out of the main thoroughfare into 
the dimly-lighted back streets, and you come upon scene 
after scene of grim and grotesque horror. Women with 
hideous, distorted faces, shrieking -vile songs ; men inter- 
changing with them foul oaths and evil jests; a cry of 
murder; a woman pursued by her drunken and furious 
husband ; the yell of an injured wife, or of some drunken 
fool entrapped into a den of infamy, robbed and hurled 
into the street by some professional bully; the heavy 
groan of a drunken man, and then stillness; he has stag- 
gered up the stairs to his attic, has missed his footing, and 
fallen heavily. Spend any Saturday night in a slum, and 
say if one-tenth of the habitual horrors have here been 
catalogued. And all these people who can spend so much 
in drink are the abject poor!” Can you wonder at it, I 
ask, when year after year you acquiesce in the system 
which leaves in one block of wretched houses 1,082 families, 
and 41 public-houses; in another 2,225 families, and 38 
public-houses. And here you shall have one or two of the 
stories of the children told by themselves. , 

M. L.—Father drunk ; struck her mother and hurt her 
skull. The mother went raving mad. The father slipped 
off a barge when drunk and was drowned. 

R. S.—Father gets drunk and beats mother, and is now 
in prison. Children dread his coming back, he is so cruel. 

C. L.—Mother drinks awfully. Dropped baby on the 
pavement and it died. This is the second which she has 
“accidentally ” killed. 

M. A. H.—Comes to the school with arm broken by her 
father ; who “didn’t mean it, only he was drunk.” 

Read these facts, face them, dare to face them, try to 
take them in; try before God to understand what they 
mean. Read that in the single town of Liverpool, 150 


216 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. ‘ 
infants are yearly overlaid, for the most part by drunken 
mothers, and then ask whether the fires which were lit to 
Moloch, in the Valley of the Children of Hinnom, were 
one hundredth part so hateful as this holocaust of her 
children which England yearly offers to the fiend of drink! 
Talk of crime, talk of pauperism, talk of Horrible London; 
it is nonsense to dream of any remedy, or any ameliora- 
tion, till the conscience of England is aroused to deal with 
this question of drink, as it was once aroused to deal with 
the infinitely less ruinous and damning curse of slavery. 
Talk of the Franchise, of Redistribution, of Land Laws; 
for any real good they will do to the people, for any real — 
help which England will gain from them in her hour of 

need, they are of an importance absolutely infinitesimal 

compared to the urgency of the necessity to repress, con- 

trol, and limit with a strong hand this curse of drink. I 

say, with the late lamented A. M. Sullivan, that if this 

question be much longer sacrificed to the mean doctrine 

of political expediency it will be a perfidy and a treason 

against the rights of man. A drunken people can never 

be a wise people. The victims of demagogues—uncon- 

trollable passion their temptation and their guide—who can 

safely trust the future, and the institutions secured by toil — 
and blood, to a race making and groping its way amid — 
such evils and such weakness? If you desire the safety of 

England educate the moral sense of her people by placing 

new and more stringent laws for the repression of drink 

upon her Statute Book, and Englishmen will soon grow as 

much ashamed of the horrors caused by the present con- 

dition of the liquor traffic as they would be ashamed to 

renew the slave trade with all its agonies and crimes. 

6. If any of you, wrapped up in supercilious acquies- 
cence, are so ignorant of the whole subject as not to be 
aware that every syllable which I have spoken, and ten 
times more and worse, could be supported with overwhelm- 
ing demonstration ; if you do not know that I have had 
no time to tell you a millionth part of the dismal and 
ghastly tale; if you do not know that an indictment far 
stronger than I have uttered has been uttered for years 
by multitudes of our deepest thinkers and our greatest 
writers—from the days of Shakespeare and Milton to those 
ef Ruskin and Carlyle—yet at least you will, perhaps, 


INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY. 217 


listen to what one or two responsible statesmen have said. 
_ Here, then, are the words of one of our Cabinet Ministers 
_—Mr. Chamberlain—spoken eight years ago :—“ Drink is 
the curse of the country. It ruins the fortunes, it injures the 
"health, it destroys the lives of one in twenty of the popu- 
lation, and anything that can be done to diminish this 
terrible sacrifice of human life and human happiness is 
well worthy of all the attention and study that we can 
give it. If we are silent the very stones will cry out. If 
I could destroy to-morrow the desire for strong drink in 
the people of England what changes should we see. We 
should see our gaols and workhouses empty; we should 
see more lives saved in twelve months than are consumed 
in a century of bitter and savage war.” Here are the 
words of another Cabinet Minister, Mr. Trevelyan, spoken 
three months ago :—“ There is nothing which rulers are 
_ prepared to give you which has one twentieth part the 
importance of this. Here is a question which is, indeed, 
the question of the people. The people lose everything 
_ that is to be lost by this traffic and gain absolutely nothing. 
The time has arrived when we could postpone every- 
_ thing to the task of wringing from Parliament the instant 
suppression, by Imperial legislation, of a vast proportion 
_ of the drink shops of the entire country, supplemented by 
_ the concession of your undoubted right to be yourselves 
the custodians of the morality, the prosperity, and the 
peace of your own streets and homesteads. Do not flag 
_ in your efforts until you have obtained that great measure, 
ee pared with which all other reforms are but as dust in 
the balance.” And you, if such there be, who think it 
' More important that brewers and gin distillers should be 
_ millionaires than that the sons of your country should be 
_ saved by thousands from themselves, and from the glare 
_ of deadly temptation with which you surround their 
, homes ; you, if such there be, who, wrapped in the serene 
_ Epicureanism of your own comfort, would pass by these 
_ drink-wounded wanderers who strew the highways of all 
_ the world ; you, who think that you show all your worldly 
, intellect by pooh-poohing with a sneer the Temperance 
_ cause—I warn you that your selfish /azssez-faire policy is 
_ fapidly becoming a desperate anachronism. When Cabinet 
Ministers use such language as you have heard; when 


at 


eas 


218 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


your Prime Minister tells you that it is true for us, and it 
is the measure of our discredit and disgrace, that greater 
calamities are inflicted on mankind by intemperance than 
by the three great historical scourges—war, famine, and ~ 
pestilence ; when a man like Lord Cairns tells you that 
there is no question which so deeply touches the moral, — 
the physical, and the religious welfare of the world ; when - 
a Lord Chief Justice like Lord Coleridge declares and re- 
iterates that the vice of drunkenness debases and brutalises 
the people of these islands; when Sir W. Harcourt, with - 
all his experience as Home Secretary, tells you that the 
evils of the liquor traffic are immense and intolerable; 
when such a man as Mr. Cowen, of Newcastle, tells you 
that on the side of drink you must put “criminality, 
pauperism, the woes which cannot be measured by arith-— 
metic, the tears of broken-hearted wives, the cries of 
perishing children, the wrecks of noble intellects” ; when | 
it would be most easy to multiply testimonies a hundred- | 
fold—the day for callousness, and sneers, and sophisms, | 
and for a logic which despises charity, and for a fatal gild- 
ing of the licence to do wrong with the name of liberty, is 
past. Yes, and has not the day for action come? Woe 
to England if she entrust the reins of her destiny to “the 
unspiritual god, circumstance!” Postponement of the 
duty of right action is a sin against the supremacy of God. 
7. Let me, then, in conclusion, most earnestly beg your 
aid to the wise, noble, but—unhappily—struggling Church 
of England Temperance Society. It has played no small 
part in the forefront of the battle against this vice of in- 
temperance, and all that causes it. If you want any testi- 
mony, Lord Shaftesbury, with all the weight and wealth of 
his noble experience, has said, “The more I examine and 
travel over the surface of England the more I see the ab- 
solute and indispensable necessity for Temperance Associa- | 
tions. Iam satisfied that, unless they existed, we should 
be immersed in such an ocean of immorality, violence, and 
sin, as would make this couniry uninhabitable.” If you 
can help in no other way as patriots to deliver your coun- 
try from this clinging curse, as Christians to rescue the 
perishing souls for whom Christ died, you can help—I 
hope you will help with noble generosity—by your gilts 
to-day. . 
| 


THE VISION OF THE KING. 219 


XIII.—The Vision ofthe King. By Tue Very Rev. H 
T. Epwarps, M.A., DEAN or Bancor.—“ Zhen said I, woe 
#s me! for Iam undone ; because [am a man of unclean lips, 
and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine 
eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts. Then flew one of 
the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which 
he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: and he laid 
st upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips ; 
and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I 
heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and 
who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.”— 
IsalaH vi. 5-8. 


THIS passage records a new view of existence that was 
seen by Isaiah, and the effects of it upon his soul. Every 
man’s course is shaped by the view that he forms of the 
Supreme Ruler. If a man has no such view, he has no 
principle, and he is living either in anarchy or in slavery to 
some other mind. There are hours in every earnest life, 
and especially in every powerful leading life, when new 
truths or new views of old truths breaking in upon the eye 
of the soul change all the aspects of being and give an 
impulse that never loses its force. Such an hour of insight 
as came to Jacob at Bethel and afterwards at Penuel now 
came to Isaiah in the temple. 

Let us consider this evening, in the first place, the 
Prophet’s view of the Supreme Ruler, “ Mine eyes have 
seen the King,” and, in the second place, the effects of that 
view upon the soul as recorded in this passage—first, pro- 
ducing an abasing sense of personal sin ; secondly, quicken- 
ing the sense of social sin; thirdly, bringing to bear upon 
the life a, purifying power ; and, lastly, giving to that life 
an ardent mission. 


I. Let us consider, then, in the first place, the view of 
the Supreme Ruler. 

Isaiah now passed through a great spiritual excitement 
such as marks the hours of conversion, the chief turning 
point in the careers of great souls. The leading idea is 
described in these words, “Mine eyes have seen the King.” 


220 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


A new real power had risen within his life. Now in his 
first natural, unenlightened, unregenerate state a man sees 
no supreme authority that has a right to rule his inner and 
his outer being. He is rather like the wild ass used to the 
wilderness that snuffeth up the wind at her pleasure, and 
he lives as he likes, according to his impulses, as far as — 
social and physical necessities will permit. But when the 
light of God dawns upon his soul then man becomes con-— 
scious of a personal will that claims to rule his life, and ox 
a personal mind that knows his downsitting and his uprising — 
and understands his thoughts afar off. We have heard this 
evening in the first lesson that “God made man after His 
own image.” As man, therefore, must reflect that image 
when it is seen by him in the light of knowledge, no less 
truly than the water must reflect the splendour of the sun 
that shines above it, so man cannot fail to bow to the 
sovereignty of God except by refusing in blind self-will to 
see God. Man can only be alienated from the life of God — 
through the ignorance that is in him, because of the insensi- 
bility of his heart. In the natural world we have sometimes — 
seen on a dark and cloudy day the mist suddenly lifted 
and the landscape revealed in a flood of light. In the 
world of intelligence, fields of inquiry that have been, © 
through the ages, hidden in darkness, have sometimes been 
discovered by the sudden flashes of genius, and at once, in ~ 
a moment, added to the mental dominion of man. So in 
the spiritual world ; sometimes Divine realities that have 
been hidden through the ages in mystery are unveiled as if 
by the rolling away of a cloud or the rising of a curtain, © 
and the secret of God shines upon the tabernacle of life. 

In this vision of the Triune Godhead Isaiah saw the 
Divine life now more fully and more clearly than he had 
ever seen it before. In words he paints for us the impres- 
sions made by it upon his soul. The sight of the Lord 
sitting upon a throne is the image that he uses to*represent 
to us the conception that he now formed of the immovable 
authority of the Divine life sending forth its unfailing laws. — 
Hitherto God had been to him a dim floating idea, far away 
in the clouds, like a distant monarch exercising no constant 
Sway over existence ; but now he recognises that the Divine 
life is everywhere ; that all things are united to God ; that 
all the duties, all the energies and the scenes of existence 


THE VISION OF THE KING. 221 


are, as it were, parts of the royal train, wide as the world, 
filling the vast floor of the temple of being. 

This change in the spiritual ideas of Isaiah seems to have 
been very similar to the change that was wrought in the 
disciples by the power of the resurrection, the sight of the 
ascension, and the inspiration of Pentecost. They had 
before acknowledged Jesus as their Master, but their ideas 
of His Divine authority were dim and uncertain. His form 
had not been lifted up before the eyes of their souls so as 
to become to them “The Most High”; His majesty had 
not been settled and established, as it were, upon a throre 
within their consciousness. They had seen His glory 1) 
glimpses through the veil of humiliation, but His influence 
local and partial to their minds, had not as yet, like a royal 
train, filled all the sanctuary of their universe. But when 
He rose from the grave, when He ascended above the 
clouds into realms out of sight, when He sent down the 
light and the heat of His Spirit into their hearts and minds, 
then they recognised Him with the sight of the soul as the 
King ; they then realized that all power was given to Him 
in heaven and in earth, that the height and the depth, that 
life and death, that sickness and health, that the cross of 
suffering and the crown of sovereignty, that the earthly 
course and the silent grave, the temporal home and the 
great hereafter, were all subject to the sovereignty of His 
Divine human sceptre. 

Similar to that is the change that is wrought in every 
human soul when religion comes instead of a misty, cloudy, 
speculative theory, as a living power to rule our daily 
being. This revelation of Jesus as the King, is going on 
for ever through the ages. It comes to various men in 
various forms. To Isaiah in the Temple, to Thomas as he 
touched the wounds of sacred suffering, to Saul as he came 
near to Damascus the light shone that revealed the King 
of Life. Through the ages it is the work of the ministry 
of the Church to unfold by her teaching the features of 
Jesus. The work of the ministry of the Church through . 
the ages is to pray the Apostle’s prayer, that the “ God of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto 
you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge 
of Him; the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; 
that ye may know what is the exceeding greatness of His 


222 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of | 
His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He 
raised Him from the dead.” 

II. Let us proceed to consider the effects of this vision 
upon the soul. The first effect upon Isaiah was to give 
him an abasing consciousness of his own personal sin, 
“Woe is me! for 1 am undone; because I am a man of 
unclean lips.” The lips being the outermost organ of that 
speech which expresses the thoughts and the feelings of the ~ 
mind and the heart, represent all the inner life ; and there- © 
fore when Isaiah says that the lips were unclean, he meant 
that the whole stream of life required purification. Why © 
did the vision of the King create this sense of guilt and 
misery? In the King is the law of our life; it is only when 
we see the King’s life that we know what our own life — 
ought to be. Because we are created in the image of God 
we are not in our true state until we reflect that image; 
therefore the sight of the Divine character must create in 
man a sense of moral failure, that is, a consciousness of sin. 
As the seraphim cried before God, “ Holy, holy, holy,” 
there is created in man a bitter consciousness of his own 
want of holiness. 

So it is for ever. Where there is no vision of excellence 
there can be no pangs of self-reproach. The village artist, 
who has never seen any works better than his own, is self- 
satisfied in his ignorance; but the man who has seen the 
master works of sovereign genius, recognises in the light 
his own nothingness in the presence of an ideal unap- 
proached, high-throned and lifted up: he cries, abased, 
“ Woe is me! I am nothing, I have everything to learn.” 

So is it in the moral world. When the vision of a pure 
life breaks in upon the eyes of the impure it creates bitter 
self-reproach, and at first rebellious impatience. When the 
frenzied, debased, ferocious slave of the demons of lust saw 
Jesus, the Lord of the moral life, drawing near, the sight 
of the most High and Holy One was agony to him, and he 
cried, “ What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, thou Son of 
God Most High.” So it is with us. The sight of God’s 
perfection for ever creates in us pangs of penitence. 

But the vision of the King not only makes us unhappy 
about our own sins, but it also makes us unhappy about 
the sins of the society of which we are members, Man is 


THE VISION OF THE KING. 223 


a social being ; we men are members of one body. If one 
member suffer all the members suffer with it. We cannot 
separate our personal life from our social life ; therefore, in 
the moment when we begin to desire a nobler personal 
life we desire also to create around us a nobler social state. 
So Isaiah, when he saw the King, looked with agony upon 
the sin and the depravity of the society of which he was 
a member, and he cried, “ Woe is me! for I dwell in the 
midst of a people of unclean lips.” And what were the 
sins that defiled the lips of Israel in those days? We have 
a description of them in the five preceding chapters. The 
fountain of all uncleanness, ever the same, is the self-will 
of our lower nature, that rebels against the King whose 
higher law is that love which constrains man to sacrifice 
his baser instincts for the Divine glory and the social good. 
Isaiah, in his first chapter, tells us that men in his days 
lived without the thought of God, to please themselves. 
God said of them, “I have nourished and brought up chil- 
dren, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth 
his owner, and the ass his master’s crib; but Israel doth 
not know, My people doth not consider.” That godless 
spirit of self-will assumed different forms in different classes 
of society, as the prophet teaches us. It made the upper 
leading class corrupt, unprincipled, self-seeking, tyrannical, 
luxurious. “Thy princes are rebellious and companions 
of thieves; every one loveth gifts, and followeth after re- 


wards.” “Their land, also, is full of silver and gold, neither 
is there any end of their treasures; their land, also, is full 
of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots.” “The 


Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of His 
people, and the princes thereof; for ye have eaten up the 
vineyard ; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What 
mean ye that ye beat My people to pieces, and grind the 
faces of the poor?” And the same godless spirit made 
men eager to be monopolists of riches, to the detriment of 
the common weal. “ Woe unto them that join house to 
house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that 
they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth.” The 
same godless spirit made the women of Israel heartless, 
thoughtless, shallow, frivolous. The prophet has painted 
the contrast between the woman of the world as she shines 
in the finery of her short-lived fashion, and as she lies in 


224 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


the noisome decay of the shroud and the sepulchre. “The — 
daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched © 
forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they © 
go. . . . The Lord will take away the bravery of their 
tinkling . . . the chains and bracelets, and the mufflers, — 
the bonnets . . . the changeable suits of apparel . . . | 
the glasses . . . the wimples, the mantles, the crisping — 
pins . . . the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vails — 

: and it shall come to pass that instead of sweet ~ 
smell there shall be stink, and instead of the girdle a rent, — 
and instead of well-set hair baldness;.. . . and burning 
instead of beauty.” But as if to give two-fold emphasis 
the prophet twice repeats that the ruinous root of the 
godless spirit of his age was its drunkenness. “ Woe unto 
them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow 
strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame 
them! And the harp, and the viol, the tabret . . . and 
wine are in the feasts; but they regard not the work of the 
Lord, neither consider the operation of His hands. There- 
fore My people are gone into captivity .. . . hell hath 
enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure. 

Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and 
men of strength to mingle strong drink.” And in this 
chapter the prophet tells : us what were the effects of these 
sins upon the tone of the nation—making the heart fat, the 
ears heavy, and the eyes blind to truth and beauty. 

Sin is not peculiar to any age. The man who has “seen 
the King,” the man who has the highest idea of life, must 
for ever say, “ Woe is me! I am among the men of unclean 
lips. I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” 
Every one of us knows the plague of his own heart when 
he stands in the presence of the King. Our nation has its 
great social evil. Britain, thank God, is not like Israel— 
unsound from the sole of the foot even to the head. Down- 
fall, let us hope, is not impending here as it was there. 
There is virtue in British homes. Society amongst us here 
and there has its hollow fashions, its tinkling frivolities, its 
haughty, overbearing arrogances, and its hidden festering 
vice, but the women of Britain—our wives and mothers and 
sisters—are not, thank God, the false, tawdry, bejewelled 
wantons that ruined the life of Israel by corrupting its 
homes, There are, amongst us sometimes, men who defile 


THE VISION OF THE KING. 225 


their lips with commercial fraud, but still, thank God, the 
motto of the British merchant is “Integrity,” and “Thorough- 
ness” is the boast of the British workman. 

But there is one fountain of uncleanness that pours forth 
a poisonous stream to defile the lips of the nation. The 
curse of strong drink is an overflowing well of shame, of 
sin, of vice, of woe. The national lips in the Parliament 
of the people have been too often defiled with sophistical 
apologies for this great national sin, this baneful sin that 
for a time feeds the finances while it starves the morality 
of the nation. A false social opinion has palliated it, has 
failed to frown, as it ought to have frowned, upon the 
fosterers of depravity. Men, as it is, are not ashamed 
amongst us of great fortunes built up, having their founda- 
tions down in the depths of human degradation; their 
houses are literally filled with the spoils of virtue; they 
deck themselves with jewels that have cost many a soul its 
purity, and many a home its peace. This sin is defiling 
our lives. Oh! how this cursed stream defiles the lips of 
human nature amongst us. The lips of the father, of the 
husband, formed by God for tenderness and love, are defiled 
with cruelty and cursing, with foulness and ferocity. The 
lips of the mother that God formed for words of purity and 
peace, to teach her offspring to lisp the lessons of life in 
accents of prayer and praise and love, are too often made 
unclean by the fiendish flight of the wicked eis blas- 
phemy, obscenity, and despair. 

If the prophet were to come amongst us; were he to 
visit the cheerless hovels where the drunkards’ children 
are withering in hungry, ragged wretchedness ; if he were to 
go through the courts where the cursings of the blasphemer 
mingle with the blows of the wife-beater ; if he were to 
watch the crowds of men and women that carry under a 
fatal spell their hard-won earnings to the shrines of sen- 
suality ; if he were to stand in our gas-lit streets when the 
countless taverns open their unwilling jaws to pour out 
their midnight stream of besotted, half-frenzied human 
beasts to swell the torrent of shame that well-nigh chokes 
at certain hours our proudest thoroughfares, would he not 
say, “Hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth 
without measure;” “ Their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and 
of the fields of Gomorrah ; their grapes are grapes of gall; 


226 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


their clusters are bitter, Their wine is the poison of dragons, 
and the cruel venom of asps” ? 

Now, my brethren, we feel pain at social evil in exact 
proportion to the clearness with which we have seen the 
King—in other words, to the strength of our religious con- 
victions, and the sincerity of our religious emotions. If we 
take low views of human destiny, if we think of ourselves 
and others as only short-lived animals, breathing away our 
brief day, and going down, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, © 
into the cold, dark earth, to rise no more, then we do not 
feel much pain when existence around us is without high — 
ends here, or high hopes of hereafter ; then we can bear to 
look with calmness on the masses of human misery, upon 
the homes that God meant to be the Paradises of earthly 
rest, turned into the fiery ante-rooms of hell; upon the young 
man, formed for knowledge, for virtue, for moral dignity, © 
for princely self-control, for immortality, transformed by the 
demon of drink into the heavy, dull, soulless, or the wild, 
furious, savage human beast ; we can bear to look upon the 
saddest of all sights, upon the young, blooming girl, once 
in her childish prime, pure as the spotless flowers of the 
early spring, blasted and blighted by the spoiler’s breath, 
sliding down the fatal slope into the dark, deep, social abyss, 
out of which there rise to our ears the hollow laughter of . 
the harlot’s drink-forced gaiety, the pitiful moaning of the 
worn-out, sinking hospital patient, the last gaspings, the — 
lonely agonies, the few hurried footsteps of the friendless, © 
tearless, unattended funeral, dying away into the silence of — 
the unremembered pauper’s grave. 

But if we have seen the King; if, in the light of His face, © 
we have learnt what life is to be, and what by His royal . 
grace He will make it to be, then we never can look at these : 
social evils without feeling our own share of responsibility, ~ 
without feeling a bitter, salutary self-reproach and crying © 
out, ‘‘ Woe is me! for I dwell in the midst of a people of | 
unclean lips.” 

My brethren, the vision that brought the pains of repent- 
ance brought also the gladness of renewal. So it is always. 
There is no birth without birth pains. So in the moral 
world. The vision that brings the agony of self-condemna- 
tion brings also the strength of reform and the ardour of 
inspiration, That cry of woe from the prophet’s lips brought 


THE VISION OF THE KING. 227 


down into his life a new power from above. “Then flew 
one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his 
hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar ; 
and he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath 
touched thy lips ; ; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy 
sin is purged.” 

Now, what is the meaning of that live coal from the 
altar? The altar is a place of sacrifice; sacrifice is an 
expression of love, and love is a leading feature in the 
countenance of the King, and therefore the power that 
redeems us into the likeness of the King is the Spirit that 
brings to bear upon us the burning influence of love from 
the altar. The altar is the cross of Calvary, on which the 
Son of man gave Himself for the good of many. Love is 
the source of all personal and of all social good. Nothing 
purifies us like sacrifice—sacrifice of thought, of care, of 
time, of toil, of money, for the good of others. We cannot 
have our life purified unless we are touched by the fire from 
the altar. If we look at the King, if we welcome the 
seraphim in prayer and praise and the sacraments—f, then, 
there comes through the power of God’s Spirit into our 
lives day after day the fire of enthusiasm and the light of 
principle, it takes away all our iniquity and it purges all 
our sin. 

In conclusion, let me remind you that this vision which 
purifies gives also a life mission. When Isaiah had received 
the vision of enlightenment, and had been touched by the 
fire from the altar, then he heard a voice saying unto him, 
“Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” Now that 
voice had been sounding through the ages, but it was only 
the men who had seen the King, and been touched by the 
sacred fire that could understand the voice, and say, “ Here 
am I, send me.” That is the voice that ‘alw ays comes to 
those who look at the King, who believe in Jesus Christ. 
Wherever there is misery and illness, wherever there is hard 
bondage and grievous affliction, there this Divine voice 
comes to those who see the King. It was the voice that 
came forth out of the burning vision in the wilderness of 
Midian to the lawgiver and liberator, and sent him forth to 
deliver his brethren from the brickfields of the tyrant; it 
was the voice that came to Clarkson and to Wilberforce in 
our own land, sending them to break the chains that cruelty, 


228 PLA TFORM -AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


greed, and arrogance had forged to deprive souls of the — 
liberty that God had'given them; and it is the voice that — 
calls to-day to earnest men to go "forth under the banner of 
temperance to break the chains ofa darker slavery that is 
destroying the glorious liberty of souls: There is in this — 
land darkness and sin; there are myriads in this land to- 
night who are'suffering a bondage harder than that of Egypt, — 
and a servitude worse than that of the West Indian negroes © 
—a bondage that binds not only the body but the soul, a 
servitude that robs man not only of the citizenship of earth, 
but shuts him out from the franchise of that city of free — 
spirits, the Jerusalem above, into which there shall enter 
nothing that defileth. 

Brethren, let us live in the sight of the King. In the 
Church He unveils His presence. Let us turn our eyes to 
the King ; let us welcome the seraphim of grace, that He 
may fire our hearts with love; that we may not, in our day, © 
stand with closed eyes and cold hearts, acquiescing in the — 
ruin and moral misery of men, but that we may look to 
the Throne and say to the King, “Thy kingdom come ;” 
that we may have our ears opened 'to every call of duty; — 
and that we may, with loyal hearts, say, whenever the © 
King calls, “ Here am I, send me.” 


AIV.—The Shadows of Civilisation. By Tue Ven. 
ARCHDEACON Farrar, D.D., F.R.S. “ And slaves, and { 
souls of men.”—REV. xviil. 13. 


1. THE Bible, in its marvellous treasury of thoughts uttered — 
by men whose souls were inspired and dilated by the Holy © 
Spirit of God, contains some lurid pictures of the downfall © 
of guilty cities and guilty nations. On the Cities of the 
Plain God rained fire and brimstone, storm and tempest, 
and, seizing Lot by the hand, the angels hurried him and ~ 
his from the ghastly overthrow. On Babylon the burning © 
lips of Isaiah pronounced its doom; on Nineveh the 
Prophets Nahumand Zephaniah; on Tyre the magnificent — 
scorn and irony of Ezekiel; on Jerusalem—the religious 
murderess of the prophets—on her sham religionism, on 
her heart of cruelty and shame hidden under the gorgeous — 
cope of ceremonial profession, the Lord Jesus Himself 


THE SHADOWS OF CIVILISATION. 229 


uttered His pathetic feeden: as ie sat soe sunset on the 
‘slopes of Olivet. And here the mighty Angel of the 
_ Apocalypse, who lightens the earth with his clory, pro- 
“nounced the doom and. dirge on Rome, as the type of the 
_ great guilty cities of the world. And what was the cause 
of the catastrophe and conflagration of these great homes 
_ of human magnificence and power? The answver is simple. 
_ It was cruelty and luxury and lust; it. was. pride, fulness 
_ of bread, and abundance of idleness ; it was the wantonness, 
_ the petulance, the insolence of corrupted wealth ; it was 
godlessness, and. the vice which invariably. follows in the 
_ wake of godlessness, and the avenging misery. which dogs 
_ the heels of vice. Cities and nations, in the days of their 
visitation, recognise not their peril, and laugh to scorn the 
prophecies of their overthrow. What did Rome care— 
_ Rome, the eternal city, the lady of the nations, sitting on 
_ her golden throne, and declaring that. she could. see no 
_ sorrow—what cared she for the wild cry of.a persecuted 
| Jew? Ay, but behind the voice of the persecuted Jew 
' was the cry of the souls under the altar “ How long, oh 
_ Lord, how long?” and the voice of the mighty angel, 
“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!” and the fiat of the 
Eternal God, speaking in the still small accents of His 
irrefragable: laws.’ And in one hour had her judgment 
come! She held in her hand the jeweiled cup of the wine 
of her seductions, and her own people and the many 
nations drunk of it; it at once intoxicated and stupehed 
them ; it inflamed their passions and dulled their con- 
sciences, and now that cup was becoming for her the cup 
of the wine of the wrath of God ; even-handed justice was 
already beginning to commend the ingredients of the 
poisoned chalice to her own lips. 

2. In this chapter we have the lament of the kings and 
merchants of the earth, as, with dust upon their heads, they 
gaze on the desolation of the Imperial City.. Standing afar 
off, for fear of her torment, they recount her treasures, they. 
bemoan her sudden destruction, First, among her stores 
of wealth, they celebrate the splendour of her jewelry—the 
gold and silver, and precious stones and pearls; and next, 
the materials of rich attire—the fine linen, and purple, and 
silk, and scarlet ; and then the costly furniture—the tables 
of citron, the vessels of inlaid ivory, and scented wood ; 


230 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE, 


then the precious spices—cinnamon, and fragrant perfumes, 
and aromatic gums ; and then the luxuries of the palate— 
wine and oil, and fine flour; and then the vast droves of 
oxen and sheep for food ; and then the magnificent equip- 
ages, horses, and chariots inlaid with silver ; and then, in 


terrific climax—that which was the crushing cost of all | 


these things in the sight of God—the blood and the misery, 
the sweat and the anguish, the fraud and oppression, the 
robbery and wrong, the groan of over-wearied bodies, and 
the anguish of neglected spirits ; the merchandise of persons 
and lives; “and slaves, and souls of men.” And God’s 
judgment had come upon it all! 

3. Yes! for all this worldly pomp and circumstance—this 
wealth and wantonness, and delicate luxury—was only the 
iridescence over the deep stagnation of her decay. You 
will remember how when Satan, in the Paradise Regained, 
shows to Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and the glory 
of them, He answers that He knows 


“ Their sumptuous gluttonies, and gorgeous feasts 
On citron tables or Atlantic stone, 


Their wines of Setia, Cales, and Falerne, 

Chios and Crete, and how they quaff in gold, 
Crystal, and myrrhine cups, embossed with gems 
And studs of pearl,” 


And He adds that He was not sent to free 
“ That people, victor once, now vile and base, 


Luxurious by their wealth, and greedier still, 
And from the daily scene effeminate. 

What wise and valiant man would seek to free 
These, thus degenerate, by themselves enslaved, 
Or could of inward slaves make outward free ?” 


The contrast thus presented between the prosperity of 
nations outwardly and their inward rottenness, the different 
aspect they bear to the eyes of men and to the Eye of God, 
is far more forcibly expressed in this apocalyptic chapter. 
The world saw in Rome a queen of the world, a home of 
splendour rarely equalled—never surpassed; the Apostle 
saw in her a doomed criminal,a fallen power. The tawdry 
magnificence, which dazzled all eyes, shrivelled up to 
nothing under one ray of Heaven’s pure light, which re- 


THE SHADOWS OF CIVILISATION. 231 


vealed the festering sores of her squalor and degradation 
Her riches were corrupted, her garments moth-eaten ; her 
gold and silver were cankered, and the rust of them, witness- 
ing against her, eat her flesh as it were fire. She had lived 
in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; she had 
nourished her heart in a day of slaughter. Her sins had 
reached unto Heaven, and God had remembered her ini- 
quities. Her palaces had been polluted; unclean wings 
flapped about their gilded roofs. She had become the 
habitation of demons, and the home of every foul spirit, 
and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. And in the 
midst of the wail of the world’s children over her destruc- 
tion, like a flash from the blue heaven, the seer interposes 
his own calm epitaph of retribution: “ And the fruits that 
thy soul lusted after are departed from thee ; and all things 
which are dainty and goodly are departed from thee; and 
thou shalt find them no more at all.” 

4. My friends, the luxury and gorgeousness of civiliza- 
tion, the splendour of imperial cities, casts a very dark and 
deep shadow. The Angel of St. John’s vision sums it all 
up in that tremendous close of his catalogue of magnifi- 
cence, “And slaves, and souls of men.” Dante, in his 
intense way, expresses the same truth. In traversing the 
grim circle of hell, he comes to a stream whose waves of 
red blood make his hair stand on end. It is Phlegethon, 
one of the four infernal rivers that disgorge 


“6 Into the burning lake their baleful streams— 
Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate ; 
Sad Acheron, of sorrow black and deep ; 
Cocytus, named of lamentation loud, 
Heard on the rueful stream ; fierce Phlegethon, 
Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.” 


Only that to Dante Phlegethon is a river of loathly gore, 
not of flame; and plunges into the abyss in a Niagara of 
boiling blood. And his guide tells him how these awful 
rivers are formed. There stands, he says, in Crete, within the 
mountain Ida, the colossal image of an old man, whose head 
is of gold, but the rest of iron and brass, and who stands 
mainly on a foot of miserable clay ; and from a fissure which 
runs throughout that image, except its head of gold drops 
a stream of tears which form these rivers of anguish, and 
of hatred, and of blood, which streaming ever downwards 


232 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


mingle and coagulate at last in the icy pool of misery, in 
which stands Satan, the author of all sin. And the allegory 
is this—that metal colossus of the old man, standing on its 
foot of clay, is the image of human civilization of the king- 
doms of the world, and the glory of them; and the stream © 
which trickles through its fissured hollowness is the stream of 
anguish and remorse which flows from their sins and vices , 
and that stream of vain tears, and sullen passion, and 
abhorrent blood wrings the agonies of infernal torment, — 
because men’s vices become their punishment; and sin, and 
the remorse of sin, is the hell of vitiated humanity ; and 
the tears of that remorse, which brings no repentance, do 
but sting, and burn, and form the true Inferno of the guilty, 
and leap down at last into the place where Satan’s seat is 
—the icy Cocytus of despair. It is a marvellous allegory 
worked out with supreme imagination, but the whole tenor 
and pathos of it, the burning conviction that sin and misery 
are the Mvariable shadows of human pomp and pride, are 
compressed yet more forcibly into these verses of St. John, 
when he says: “And the merchants of the earth shall weep 
and mourn over her; for no man buys their merchandise 
any more: the merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious 
stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, 
and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels 
of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood 
and of brass, and iron, and marble; and cinnamon, and 
odour, and perfumes, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, 
and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and 
horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.” 

5. My friends, read over this chapter, and mentally put 
England, put London, for the great world-city of the seer’s 
apocalyptic vision. The details of it, says one of the 
ablest and calmest of modern commentators, “far more 
nearly suit London than Rome at any period of her history.” 
Is our merchandise less memorable than this? Have we 
not ransacked all the world for our luxury and splendour— 
the silver of Potosi; the gold of Australian rivers; the 
spices of Arabia; the amber of the Baltic shore; the furs 
of the Arctic ; the looms of India; the bazaars of China ; 
the workshops of Japan? Are not the creatures of the 
earth becoming gradually extinct, from the elephant who 
bears for us his load of ivory, to the silver fox of the prairies, 


7 
q 
: 
; 


THE SHADOWS OF CIVILISATION. 233 


and the kingfisher of our English streams, and the little 
feathered jewels of American forests, which are slaughtered 
in myriads for our adornment? Is not the toiling life of 
the many spent for the self-indulgence of the few? Is it 
less true of us than of those Florentine brothers in the 


poem— 


“ And for them many a weary hand did swelt 
In torched mines, and noisy factories: 
Many all day in dazzling river stood, 
To take the rich-ored driftings of the flood ; 
For them the Ceylon diver held his breath 
And went all naked to the hungry shark ; 
For them his ears gushed blood ; for them in death 
The seal on the cold ice, with piteous bark, 
Lay full of darts ; for them alone did seethe 
A thousand men in troubles deep and dark: 
Half ignorant they turned an easy wheel 
That set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel.” 


It seems as if it were an inevitable adjunct fo men’s 
progress in wealth and prosperity, that there could be 
merchandise not only in objects of splendour, but also in 
the bodies and souls of men. “ History,” says a great 
historian, “is indeed little more than the register of the 
crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.” Slaves? you 
will say. “Did not our fathers abolish the slave-trade ?” 
Yes, they did! by the noblest and most Christian act that 
ever emanated from a Christian Legislature! And would to 
God we were not content merely to praise the deed of our 
fathers, but would ourselves diversify the pettiness of end- 
less political janglings by some heroic deeds of beneficent 

Christian legislation, as might yet prove that we are a 
‘great and God-fearing nation. But you will say, “ At any 
rate we have nothing to do with slaves now. Is it not 
our proudest boast that no slave can ever set foot on 
English soil, for the soil of England sets him free? That 
no slave can tread an English ship—that in any port, all 
over the world, the touch of its plank has set him free.” 
Yes, and I say again, Would to God that the example of 
our fathers were ever a fresh inspiration to the courage 
-and bold initiative of our statesmanship in social re- 
formation! for meanwhile our merchandise, like that of 
Rome, still includes the bodies and souls of men. Bodies, 
for that is the literal word for slaves. The slave tends to 


234 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


become a body, to become what the ancients called him, “a 
live chattel,” “a talking instrument.” And tens of thou- 
sands among us—tens of thousands, whose interests we 
ought most tenderly, most anxiously to consider—are 
forced for daily bread to lead very hard, and wretched, and 
servile lives. Look at the poor storm-beaten fishermen of 
our coasts, often barely able to snatch food, as they are 
tossed day and night on the stormy surge, and wrapped in — 
the blinding spray, while their children stare out into the 
storm, and their wives weep out their aching hearts. Look 
at our police standing for long hours of the night, exposed 
to frequent peril, bearing the lonely darkness, the streaming 
rain, the biting wind, the stinging hail. Look at the poor 
seamstresses— 


“ Work, work, work ! 
From weary chime to chime ; 
Work, work, work ! 
As prisoners work for crime. | 
Band and gusset, and seam, 
Seam and gusset, and band, 
Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumbed, 
As well as the weary hand.” 


Look at the 200,000 shopmen and shopwomen in London 
alone, of whom many are employed between 80 and 90° 
hours a week, standing with cruel fatigue in bad gas-poi-' 
soned air, 13, 15, sometimes even 18 hours a day, till the 
brain swims, till the eyes are weary, till they are worn out 
physically, mentally, and spiritually, afflicted with spine 
diseases, smitten in growth with premature old age, through 
the thoughtlessness of men and women, ever multiplying 
among us a feebler and sicklier progeny, and making our 
great cities the graves of the physique of our race, till one 
who has seen the conditions of many millions, even in 
countries where despotism is untrammelled, says that even 
under bad governments, and amid horrid superstitions, he 
has never seen a more grinding drudgery. Listen again to 
the cry of the unemployed in this great city who cannot 
get work in these hard times; read the heart-rending 
accounts of men, faint and weak from lack of food, gaunt 
and haggard, with hollow eyes and famished faces, besieg- 
ing the dock gates from three o’clock in the morning to get 
ene poor day’s job. Look at what a living man of science” 


THE SHADOWS OF CIVILISATION. 235 


has called the great Serbonian bog of deadness, and dul- 
“mess, and misery, and degradation, worse than that of the 
savage, which may some day swallow up the surface crust 
of our civilisation, and then ask whether we in this city also 
have not our hapless slaves? Slaves often more wretched 
and more hard-pressed by far than those of ancient days; 
slaves for whose refuge, unlike the ancient Athenians, we 
erect no altar of Pity; slaves who, night after night, in 
hunger and misery, without one ray of comfort, await as 
their chiefest hope the day when God shall curtain their 
staring eyes with the merciful film of death. Is it not 
“lamentable to think how great a proportion of all the 
efforts and talents in the world are spent in neutralising 
one another?” Can any thoughtfulness of ours and of our 
tulers be too deep to prevent this wretched waste? Ought 
we not daily to pray, “ Oh, let the sorrowful sighing of these 
prisoners come before Thee. Through the greatness of Thy 
power save Thou those that are appointed to die?” And 
praying ought we not, individually and nationally, to labour 
also for that end? 

6. “ And slaves, and souls of men.” For there are forms 
of slavery more pitiable, of thraldom more abject, of self- 
chosen serfdom to demon masters far worse than the yoke 
of poverty and toil. The fact is, but for sin and self-indul- 
gence there would be but little pauperism. Look at our 
slaves to drink! Can any slavery be more hideous, more 
grinding, more dehumanising, than that of our hundreds of 
thousands of drunkards, and persons fond of drink, whose 
lives are ruined, whose powers are blighted, whose health 
is poisoned, whose brains are maddened, whose wives and 
families are trampled down into unspeakable degradation 
in consequence of this deadly crave which drink creates ? 
Who slew all these? Who is it who plunges so many 
bodies and souls of men into the cell of the madman, and 
the grave of the suicide? Who is responsible for the 
execrable system of multiplied temptation which causes so 
many to be rather damned into the world, than born into 
the world ; and which, now for so many, many years, has 
cried aloud for vengeance to a long-suffering God, because 
of the disease, the curse, the crime, the misery which it 
entails upon slaves and the souls of men? I say it with 
the whole fulness of knowledge, with the whole strength of 


236 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


conviction—England will never be out of deadly peril til 
she has had the moral courage to deal adequately with the 
question of drink. And are there not also among us 
myriads of men and women who are slaves to their lowes 
passions? How awful is the thought of the tens of thou 
sands of men, who, by violation of God’s high, beneficent 
eternal law of purity, fill their whole being with the seed 
of death! Their bones are full of the sin of their youth 
which shall lie down with them in the grave. Physicians 
—so I am assured by some of the most eminent amongs 
them—are coming more and more to the conclusion, that 
apart from accident and a few epidemics, there is scarcely 
a single form of the terrible diseases which scourge man- 
kind which does not find its origin or its intensification i 
drink or in uncleanness ; in the vice and self-indulgence of 
men, or of their fathers. And how terrible is the fact that 
in generation after generation, new victims of sin and self 
indulgence, pouring oil of vitriol on the roses of their youth, 
recruit the miserable army from the ranks of blighted 
womanhood and ruined manhood, heaping on themselve: 
the sore retribution which, unknown perhaps to any b 

God, shall yet lie down with them in the grave, and be 
handed by hereditary transmission to blast the happiness 
and help in destroying the souls of their innocent children! 
How terrible is the fact that, generation after generation, 
men, like natural brute beasts, made to be taken and 
destroyed, corrupt themselves in the things that they 
know, and utterly perish in their own destruction! Oh, as 
we walk these streets of London, so beset with horrible 
pitfalls for the inexperienced ; so polluted with manifold 
temptations for the innocent and the young; when we 
witness the shameless efforts of the inventors of evil things 
to entrap to their ruin unwary souls; when the great 
thoroughfares are crowded with those most wretched and 
most degraded of all earth’s daughters of an unutterableé 
shame, matched by a yet more unutterable misery, which 
selfish, heartless, corrupted men trample down into the 
horrible mire and clay of earth’s deepest anguish for the 
sake of their own violent passions, receiving into their own 
blood the recompense of death; when one knows that 
under the very shadow of the greatest monuments of th 
faith of our fathers, are places so tainted with sickening 


; THE SHADOWS OF CIVILISATION. 233 


immorality as to be like great plague spots of temptation ; 
when we see the poor so huddled together in foul streets 
that scarcely a public opinion in favour of chastity is left 
‘among them, and the young girl who has sold to the 
enemy of man the eternal jewel of her soul, comes back 
‘without one touch of shame, with the baseborn child 
doomed in its turn to drink, and infamy, and death ; when 
we know all that we do know of the working of all these 
mysteries of iniquity ; when, amid the tide of being which 
surges past us in the street, we see so many wrecks, so 
many bodies wanting soul, so many base ignoble faces of 
the lost, so many who have sold themselves to drink and to 
the devil, and to work all uncleanness with greediness ; 
when through the hollow clay of our civilization we watch 
the dribbling of these streams of tears and blood—of tears 
that are not the tears of penitence, of blood which is not 
the blood of atonement—must we not admit that London 
too is in part a habitation of demons, and a cage of every 
unclean and hateful bird, and that among us, too, amid all 
our splendour and luxury, there is a merchandise of the 
bodies and souls of men? 
7. I have said nothing of the countless slaves of Mam- 
mon, and of the countless slaves to the lying voice of 
public opinion. My object has only been to point out 
how solemn is our need for thoughtfulness, for personal 
and for national self-humiliation, for deep repentance, for 
consideration alike of our public and private duties. Par- 
liament has met once more under circumstances of deep 
seriousness. There is gloom abroad; there is depression 
at home. We waver and are divided, and hardly recognise 
what we ought todo. Our thoughts are so full of Egypt 
that no one has any time to consider the awful needs of 
England ; our feelings are so harassed about our poor 
soldiers in Korti that no one can attend to the social 
wreckage wrought on hundreds of thousands by drink, 
and vice, and fraud, and oppression here in London. Who 
knows what may be in store for us? Are we being swept 
on irresistibly to some great catastrophe which shall decide 
for a thousand years our national destiny? Shall the sun 
of England set in the desert of Egypt as the sun of Athens 
set in the Bay of Syracuse? Have we by our shame and 
‘sins of so many kinds, by our want of Godliness and our 


238 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


want of manliness, by our immoral acquiescence in pre- 
ventable evils, by our Mammon-worship, and our injustice, 
and want of love to God and man—have we deserved God’s 
judgments? Or alone of all nations and kingdoms shall 
England be exempt from the doom of the mighty Angel 
of Justice? Have no cities, great as this, promised them- 
selves immortality? Where are Palmyra and Thebes? 
Where are Nineveh and Carthage? Where is the Tower 
of Belus and the hanging gardens of Semiramis? Are 
they not the stories of emptiness? Has not the line of 
confusion been stretched over them? What became of 
the Rome of the Pagan Czsars ? 


* The abhorred form 
Whose scarlet robe was stiff with earthly pomp, 
Who drank iniquity in cups of gold, 
Whose names were many, and with blasphemous 
Oaths met the horrible judgment !” 


Shall no harm ever come nigh us? Shall the rich ever 
grow richer, and the miserable ever grow with a more 
eternal hunger? Shall we still surround the steps of the 
drunkard with flaming pitfalls? Shall greedy owners still 
huddle the poor into infamous slums and lairs, and shall 
no voice cry, and no brand smite ? 

Two points there are of brightness among the gloom. 
One the spontaneous loyalty of our great colonies, which, 
like angels many and strong, have sprung forward to the 
aid of their weakened and troubled motherland. The 
other, that this age has produced among her conspicuous: 
sons at least one man—one man of high purity and noble- 
ness—who, in this decadence of all England’s old heroic 
simple virtues, has shown a sovereign self-possession, a_ 
supreme contempt for the death we all fear, a supreme 
contempt for the money we all worship, a supreme con- 
tempt for the babbling and blatant voices which we all 
take for fame. We had him and we knew not how to 
preserve him; we put him in the forefront of our battle 
and retired, and he has been slain. And he, at least, has” 
proved to us that the heart of the world, while it cares 
nothing (why should it care?) for whole armies of idlers, 
and chatterers, and gilded youth, and smooth ecclesiastics, 
and self-seeking politicians, and Churchmen with the view 


THE SHADOWS OF CIVILISATION. 239 


of worldlings, and worldlings with the thin veneer of 
Churchmanship—the nations, while they care nothing for 
the facing-both-ways, and the pickers and stealers, and 
liars and slanderers, and luxurious self-seekers, and fools 
grown insolent with fooling, have known how to recognise 
a true man, at least when he is dead; and from the banks 
of the Guadalquivir to the Seine, yea, from Pekin to 
Moscow, in all the five great continents, and in the islands 
of the sea, have been able to discriminate between the 
glitter of mere tinsel and God’s own gold. Among the 
slaves of our wealth and of our iniquity, oh! may God 
give us more such men as he! Among the multitudes 
of souls taken captive by Mammon, and eaten away by 
pride, and selfishness, and vice, may God give more of us 
grace to walk as he did in the steps of his Master, Christ, 
working out our own salvation with fear and trembling. 
Only in the righteousness of good and holy men shall be 
the deliverance of England. Then, and so, shall all perils 
be averted, when our sons and our daughters grow up in 
the fear of God and the service of His Christ; when we 
ourselves learn above all things to do justice, and love 
mercy, and walk humbly with our God ; when we halt no 
longer between two opinions ; when we burst the bondage 
of Mammon, and drink, and lust; when we learn to hate 
and abhor lies, and to control our passion and mortify 
our selfishness ; when we turn to God with all our hearts ; 
when we learn to love righteousness and hate iniquity ; 
then shall iniquity not be our ruin; then shall the axe, 
uplifted haply to its backmost poise, be checked in mid 
air; then though clouds dark and ominous loom on the 
horizon, they shall not blot out our sky; and though the 
lightnings begin to flicker overhead for our warning, the 
day may yet be averted (may God grant it) when they shall 
smite, and blaze, and burn as those which fell on the Cities 
of the Plain, 


240 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


XV. Launch into the Deep. Sy Rey. J. C. Epcum1, . 


D.D. 


“ Now when He had left speaking, He said unto Simon, Launch 


out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. 


. . And Simon answering said unto Him, Master, we — 


have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing; neverthe- 
less, at Thy word I will let down the net.”—LUKE Vv. 4, 5. 


IT was a very hard command; it was unexpected and 
unexplained ; it was a special trial to St. Peter’s faith, for 
he was a fisherman, and Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who 
gave the command, was a carpenter. Peter had been 
fishing all his life, he knew the likeliest time and the 
likeliest place for a draught. It is very difficult to yield 
up oneself, in what we feel we certainly know, to one whose 
‘knowledge we are doubtful of, and of which we have no 
evidence. I think this is what Jesus Christ demanded 
when He said to Peter, “Launch out into the deep, and 
let down your nets fora draught.” It was a hard com- 
mand, and it came just when they were worn out, tired 
and disappointed. During the night they had worked with 
a will, they had put forth all their powers, all their skill 
and strength, and now the morning came, and their toil 
was still unrewarded; they were unsuccessful and dis- 
appointed, yet Jesus Christ came to them at this moment 
and said, “ Launch out into the deep, and let down your 
nets for a draught.” Now, when it is most unlikely ; now, 
when the sun is clear in the sky; now, when the stillness 
of the lake is disturbed by many a boat; now, when there 
is a hum of voices off the shore—“ Now, launch out into 
-the deep, and let down your nets in the expectation and 
certainty of a draught.” Is it not natural that Peter should 
say, “ Master we have toiled all night and have taken no- 
thing, we have worked, we have striven hard, we did not 
cease to work till every effort seemed fruitless, and now 
Thou sayest launch out into the deep?” Wecan almost 
see into St. Peter’s soul; he is an open and a frank man; 
there is a struggle going on, he looks at the lake, and he 
feels that another venture will be but another failure, and 
he looks at Jesus, and there is something in His face and 
something in His word which tells of supernatural power, 


LAUNCH INTO THE DEEP. 241 


and Peter says “‘ Master, in spite of my experience, in spite 
_ of all probabilities, in spite of the fact that all the fishermen 
_ of this lake will laugh at us, at Thy word I will let down 
i the net.” And so they launched out into the deep, and let 
_ down the nets at Christ’s command, and the shoal of fish 
was so great and mighty that their nets were beginning 
to break, and Peter’s soul is won to the Lord ; the Master 
becomes the Lord. That scene on the Sea of Galilee has 
long since passed away, but Jesus Christ speaks to us 
through it to-day. He no longer confronts Peter by that 
flashing water, but He stands face to face with us—wearied, 
disappointed men and women, and gives His command to 
launch out into the deep and let down the nets for a 
draught. Let us take this word of Jesus, this command of 
Jesus, and this answer of Peter, first with reference to our 
own souls, and then with reference to our own work; 
especially the work of the Society, which we lay before 
God to-night. 

First, then, with reference to ourselves. Life for most 
of us is profoundly disappointing and discouraging ; we 
determine to give ourselves to Christ, to put down the 
sins that do so easily beset us, we repent of them, we turn 
from them, we turn from darkness to light, and from the 
power of Satan to God, and when we have turned, we 
behold the figure of Jesus on the Cross, and there comes 
to us from His lips words of comfort. We cannot gaze on 
that figure without feeling “ He loved me, and gave Him- 
self for me. He can, He will, He does forgive all my 
guilty past,’ and then we start out in the joy of that 

- assured forgiveness with high hopes of holiness, perhaps, 

and with thoughts of continued advance, and then soon we 
find ourselves in the midst of battle and strife in the 
wilderness, We find that our view of the Christian life is 
a mistake, and we are disappointed—depressed. We lose 
heart and hope, and we say—it is wrung from us by bitter 
experience—“ Master, we have toiled all night and have 
taken nothing.” Now, to such disappointed souls, the 
words of Peter to Christ convey the secret of life and hope. 
Master, we acknowledge it all. We have failed. Oh, how 
utterly ! Oh how terribly ! ! We have lost heart in the strife. 
It seems as if these sins will pursue us to the bitter end ; 
but, nevertheless, in spite of failures, let us again renew the 

R 


242 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


attack. Christian life is indeed a perpetual warfare with an 
undying foe. Nevertheless, we will go on. Our troops in 
the Soudan have been longing in these last weeks that they — 
might meet the enemy face to face, and in one battle, how- 
ever great the loss, complete the work. Is it not so with 
us? Do we not long to have some upstanding fight with — 
that terrible foe, and then to have it over? Instead of 
that we are harassed on every side by his attacks, and 
they seem never to end. Nevertheless, in spite of this, 
though we are so often defeated, let us in the power of 
Christ never yield, but still go on hoping, even if it be — 
against hope, and in the end we shall be more than con- 
querors. 

And then surely, dear friends, this word of St. Peter and 
this message of Christ does bring to us in reference to 
the work of this Society lessons which we need to learn. 
‘ Jesus Christ spoke to St. Peter, and to those that were 
with him, as to His workers. They were workers, they 
were those whom He was now to send in His Church to 
work for Him, and this miracle is the miracle for workers ; 
it tells us what to expect and how we are to work. 
“Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets fora 
draught,” is the message of the Lord to all who work for 
Him. It came home years ago to the hearts of those men ~ 
now honoured in the Church, who founded this Society, 
and bade the Church launch out into the deep, and let 
down their nets for a draught, and they have handed it on © 
to us. Surely, dear friends, when we look out into this 
world we are struck by its misery, by the marvellous con- 
trasts there are in it, by the sad inequalities. Side by side — 
with the marvellous material progress that there is around 
us, there is abject misery and wretchedness. Side by side 
with all that is grand and beautiful, there is much that is 
hideous and dispiriting. Men are utterly victimised by © 
their own weakness, and women are sacrificed in thousands 
by the lusts and passions of men. There can be no doubt 
about the misery, we see it on every hand. We may in- 
deed close our eyes to it thoroughly if we will, and refuse — 
to see anything outside the closed sanctuaries of our own 
luxurious peace, but if we do we are none of Christ's, for 
He faced evil. He gathered around Him every kind ‘of 
evil, so much so, that when He was on earth you know He 


LAUNCH INTO THE DEEP. 243 


looked up to heaven, and sighed as He saw the misery that 
abounded. And when the command comes to us, as it 
does come, to launch out into the deep of this world’s 
wretchedness and misery, do we not find, if we attempt to 
do so, that the one great cause of the many causes com- 
bined is the drink? We go into our prisons, and we ask 
the chaplains and the governors of the prisons, what has 
brought about the misery there? It has been my lot, in 
the last few years, to be stationed in a garrison town, 
where there is a large convict prison, and every day well- 
nigh, I used to meet hundreds of these men being marched 
to the public works, and when I spoke to the chaplains 
about it, the answer came back that directly or indirectly 
this drink had much to do with bringing about the misery. 
It is a fruitful source of misery, who does not know it? 
Which of us, especially amongst the Clergy, does not know 
many a man of our own order who has lost everything 
simply and solely through this sin? Which of us cannot 
recall some brother who has stood before us, and begged, 
‘it may be, for another trial, and the sweat has come upon 
his brow as we have had to tell him the impossibility of 
recall? Which of us is there that has not sighed for a 
face haunting him in the silent night, when he wakes up 
and his thoughts wander? Oh, the misery it brings. The 
letters that come from wives and mothers, beseeching and 
entreating that husbands may again be tried in the battle 
of life where they have before so grievously failed, how 
they wring the heart! Misery! what misery the drink 
brings? There stands by the coffin of a dead child, a 
mother. Her heart is well-nigh broken ; she is taking the 
last look at the child that has been her comfort and stay, 
when suddenly the door is pushed open and in comes the 
husband. Surely he has come to comfort and console. 
Surely he will take her by the hand, and kneel down 
and say, “ Wife, we must be all in all to one another 
now.” What does he do? Within a few moments blows 
are heard in that room, and a husband, brutalised by drink, 
in the presence of his dead child, batters and beats his wife 
because she cannot tear herself away in a moment to fetch 
for him some of her own hard-earned money, that he may 
spend it in drink. Oh! the miseries that come from drink! 
There lies a dying woman, her face is that of an angel; she 


244 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


has learned patience in suffering, she has learned to look 
upon the Saviour’s face until her own has something of 
His unearthly glory. Gradually she is sinking away under 
that fell scourge of consumption. Her husband comes in 
day by day from his work, his question is, “You here still?” 
Brother men, is that what we are? Can we come to that? 
Is there anything in this world to make us like that but 
drink? Worse remains. I speak that which my own eyes 
have seen, my own ears have heard. A brother sends to a 
dying woman a few delicacies to cheer her last moments, 
and one who lived in that house, with that wonderful 
charity and love that comes out from the hearts of the 
poor, making us understand how they may be God’s elect, 
leads her to give up her time to attend to this poor dying 
woman for nought. But the mother and the sister of the 
dying woman come to see her, and they take the little 
‘delicate food which had been sent to the woman just about 
to sink into the grave—they take it and eat it before her 
eyes and refuse to give her one morsel of it, and when the 
poor soul, in her utter weariness, sinks to sleep for a 
moment, they take a purse from beneath the pillow and 
rob her of the single shilling she has. We talk of the 
inequalities of life, and sometimes we cannot understand 
them ; but, dear friends, God never meant them to be as 
they are. It is the passions and the lusts of men that have 
made them so. Take away the drink and the evils that 
come from it, and you have done much, very much, to rid 
life of these awful, piercing, painful inequalities that make 
us sometimes wonder whether there is a God that judgeth 
the earth or not. 

Well, then, dear friends, we can understand why the 
hearts of men, who founded this Society years ago, were 
moved with pity as they looked out at the wretchedness 
of life—moved with pity to found this Society to rescue 
men from this terrible foe. God be thanked that they did 
so. It was the Holy Spirit that inspired them to give 
this command to the Church—“ Launch out into the deep, 
and let down the net for a draught.” We need the com- 
mand now almost as much, for no services, however 
beautifully rendered, and no sermon, however eloquently 
preached, can touch those whose Church is the public- 
house and whose prayer-books have handles to them, 


4 


LAUNCH INTO THE DEEP. 245 


“Launch out into the deep,” is the command, and this 
Society helps us to do it. Go where the fish are—catch 
them for life and not for death. The command is needed 
now, for this Church of ours has not altogether risen up 
to it. 

In the last few months three militia regiments have 
been employed on permanent service. They came from 
English counties and English towns. Four-fifths of them, 
to say the least, were members of this National Church by 
name, by profession, so that in those three regiments there 
were above 2,000 men. Now, we chaplains have, in one 
sense, a very accurate gauge of the influence and power 
the Church of England has on these masses of people from 
whom the recruits are drawn. There were 2,000 men, mil- 
itia, and yet on Easter-day there was not one who knelt 
before the altar of God. More than that, out of those 2,000 
men there was not one who was commended to the chap- 
lains of the stations to which they were sent, either by 
clergyman or layman, by any Church Society, or by any 
Temperance Society. Having gone a little into the matter 
I have good reason for stating that these men were in the 
main uninfluenced by the Church of England, and are 
untouched as yet by those influences that have done so 
much to gain souls for Christ. I am sure of this, that if we 
want to touch that class we must go on the lines of this 
Society, and launch out into the deep, and try and win 
them to Temperance first, and to God afterwards ; preach 
the preaching of John the Baptist first, and then the loving 
words of Jesus Christ. We are thankful that this Society 
has put this bounden duty plainly before the Church. You 
have something else to do in the National Church besides 
providing for the comfort of your respectable worshippers ; 
you owe a duty to those who are not yet touched. It 
is your business to seek and to save that which was 
lost. If you would justify your position as a National 
Church, you must go out and catch these fish where they 
are to be found, and bring safe to land for life and not for 
death. I suppose if we have ever tried to carry out this 
command, we have been met, as St. Peter was, by want of 
success, disappointment, and failure; and the more earnest 
our efforts have been, the more we have been disappointed, 
and the more we have had to confess before God our utter 


246 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


weakness and insufficiency in ourselves. “ Master,” we say 
“we have toiled all the night and caught nothing.” 

Well, dear workers in this Temperance movement, let me 
speak a word of encouragement. Do not despair because 
there has been apparently a want of success. Jesus Christ 
has been looking at you all through the night. His eye 
has been upon you, and now, at the most unlikely time 
—in the most unlikely place—He will give you the bless- 
ing you have so long been seeking. Do not despair; let 
us gather up the principles upon which we must work 
successfully. First of all, Temperance work must be done 
at the bidding of Christ. We welcome many other at- 
tempts to win men to higher things. We look not with 
jaundiced eye upon anything that tends to men’s material 
improvement ; we rejoice at it. We are glad to find that 
the dwellings of the poor will probably be bettered. We 
- delight to know that education is spreading. We cannot 
but rejoice in the uprising everywhere of coffee palaces, or 
in the spread of the refining influences of music and art. 
We rejoice at all this, but our principle is: At Thy bidding, 
O Christ, we let down the net. We do not want merely 
to reform man’s outward condition, but we want to con- 
vert man to God. Temperance work is but an accessory, 
so to speak. We aim at the man’s reformation really 
through his conversion. Dear friends, it must be with the 
word of Christ, the word which tells of His love, the love 
of the loving Father, to every child, however wandering 
he has been from Him. This must be our strength; this 
our power,—at Thy word. We love this C.E.T.S. because — 
it has dared to put in the forefront this truth—it is at : 

| 
| 


the word and with the word of Christ alone that we can 
succeed. Let us not merely remember that saying of St. 
Peter, “At thy word,” but let us never forget the ‘‘ Never- — 
theless” of Peter. Oh! we want that word in Temperance ~ 
work more than in anything else—Nevertheless. We say 
to those filled with despondency, or often dismay at the 
magnitude of the evil—and when men go back again like ~ 
the sow that is washed to her wallowing in the mire— 
Nevertheless is our motto, in spite of it all we will not 
yield. In spite of it all—at the word of Christ we will 
persevere. “Nevertheless, at Thy word.” Though we | 
have been disappointed, though we have been over and ~ 
| 
{ 


LAUNCH INTO THE DEEP. 247 


over again met with thanklessness where we anticipated 
gratitude—nevertheless, Jesus Christ has taught us the 
infinite preciousness of every soul, and so we will not 
yield in the strife with evil. ‘“ Nevertheless, at Thy word, 
we will let down the net.” First of all, those of you who 
can help to do it, let down the net of restrictive legislation. 
As Mr. Gladstone said, we want to make it easy for the 
people to do right, and difficult for them to do wrong. 
We want alteration of the law; and now as power has 
descended to those who feel the need of aid in the strife, 
doubt not that we shall be able to do something in the 
way of prevention. Let down the net of rational amuse- 
ment. We want to fill men’s lives with greater brightness 
than they have known before. Much has been done, but 
there is room for much more. Oh! ye who have the means 
and the heart to do it, take this as your net and let it 
down. Do something to relieve the lot of the poor. Do 
something to do away with the infinite misery that God 
never meant should exist. Do something to justify to 
men your own possession of those gifts which God has 
given you. Let down the net of total abstinence from 
intoxicating drinks as beverages. This is the mission net 
of this Society. It rescues the fish from the element of 
death, and brings them into life. If you want to do 
anything to rescue the drunkard, we believe it must be 
on this line. Many other things you cando. We cheer- 
fully accept every help. We do not wish to lay another 
commandment to God’s ancient ten. We do not wish to 
bind the conscience of any Christian man or woman, but 
for the special work of reclaiming the drunkard we hold 
that total abstinence is almost a necessity. I know what 
it is with soldiers, and soldiers are men, and I feel that the 
chaplain who goes to them, even with the general plat- 
form of this Society, which we welcome and rejoice over, 
nevertheless will have but little power, because men want 
to know that you are bearing the cross; that you want to 
put upon them that which you are willing to help them to 
bear, that you are saying, “ Come with us, and we will do 
thee good.” This is what they expect us tosay. Dear 
friends, let us be sure of this, that in laying down this net 
of total abstinence we are but doing that which Christ 
would allow, for Christ would approve every means whereby 


248 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


we might save some. We do not want to discuss in this 
place the different platforms of the Society. We acknow- 
ledge the wise liberty it gives. We thank God that it has 
raised this Temperance question to a higher level than it 
ever reached before through its wisdom, but we do claim 
the right, and we urge the privilege and the blessing of 
total abstinence for those who wish to do missionary 
work—the actual reclaiming work upon the drunkards— 
the slaves of drink. And, again, I think this total abstill 
nence net ought to be let down, especially in this day, to 
bear a protest, simple though it be, against the abounding 
luxury that meets us on every hand. Is it not true that ™ 
men and women are living beyond their means—spending 
upon their food, drink, and dress, that which they have no - 
right to spend? And surely one protest may well take 
the form of total abstinence ; abstaining, not because we - 
believe it to be absolutely wrong, but because it is ex 
pedient in the present distress to abstain from that upon 
which so much money is so unwisely and wickedly ex- 
pended? A protest—and who ought to bear it but we 
Christians? Are we not to be a peculiar people? Has 
not Christ called us to this? Ought we not in society to 
bear the same protest? Ought we not, when we know of — 
this abounding luxury which is ruining so many homes, by 
the very simplicity of our lives to show men that we are 
followers of Jesus Christ? Let down the net of restrictive 
legislation, rational amusement, and better dwellings for 
the people, and of total abstinence; and let them all 
down in faith fora draught, expecting God to do some- 
thing, and God will do something. Has He not done 
much? Has He not answered the prayers of our fathers” 
in this movement? Has He not, by their influence, 
touched the whole mind and heart of the Church? Is it 
not marvellous? And now it has come to us to help 
and uphold their hands. Let us let down these nets for 
a draught. 

Let us be sure that success will attend our efforts if we 
make them at His word, and if, in the spirit of that 
“ Nevertheless,” we let down all the nets that He puts 
into our hands. So, dear friends, we call you to renewed 
efforts on behalf of this grand Society. It is the Church 
of England herself in her aspect towards the misery that 


A NEW YEAR’S ADDRESS. 249 


comes from drunkenness; it is the Church launching out 
into the deep, not being contented with her glorious 
services on the edification of her worshippers, but going 
out like her Lord and Master to seek first, and then ts 
save, those that were lost. Christian workers, men and 
women, members of this grand Society, “ Ye are the light 
of the world, ye are the salt of the earth, ye are workers of 
God.” Let no discouragement damp or dull your faith, 
or diminish your efforts. In spite of them all, go on at 
the word of Christ, at the bidding of Christ. The result 
is certain, for Jesus lives; only work on, work ever. Set 
before you the immense value of any soul, and when you 
have reclaimed it, know, realize, that by God’s grace you 
have been able to do a noble work—a work that Christ 
approves, and that Christ will reward. This Society, to do 
this work, appeals to you for an income of 410,000 a year. 
If London would give up its banquets for one night, how 
easily this sum would be raised. I read an appeal from 
this Society, in which it was said that more money was 
spent every hour in the United Kingdom on drink than 
this Society wants to do its blessed work ina year. Is it 
not scandalous that in Christian England this should be 
the case? That the work of launching out into the deep 
should be stopped and hindered for want of a few pounds, 
when every hour throughout the year that which it asks 
for, and does not get by one half, is spent on useless drink, 
and drink that could be done without ; and on luxuries for 
which God will demand an account? Let us help it by 
active work, by our simple lives, and by being more and 
more a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Let us 
help it by our alms, as God has given us the blessing, and 
so let us give it to them that this reproach may be wiped 
away—that the money spent in drink in one hour may not 
ex.ced that which is given to this grand work of the 
National Church, 


XVI. A New Year’s Address. Sy THe Ven. Arcu- 
DEACON Farrar, D.D., F.R.S, 


THE reason I came here to-night is because the Secretary 
told me I should meet a number of those engaged earnestly 
and heartily in the work of Bands of Hope. Now several 


250 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE. 


ite 


members of my own family are extremely earnest workers 
in Bands of Hope in various parts of England. I therefore 
know a good deal about the work, and the more so because 
there are two flourishing Bands of Hope in my own parish 
for different classes of the children of the poor. I know 
also that the work is very self-sacrificing, often very monoto- 
nous, and I fear that in many parishes it is a work carried 
on not only gratuitously but without, at any rate, marked 
sympathy from those who are the authorities in the parish. 
If that be the case I can only say that in Christian work, 
in the beneficent work of the Church, which is carried on 
simply for its own sake, and because you feel it to be great 
and useful, is exactly the most beautiful and precious kind 
of work that you can do, because, obviously, it is work 
undertaken largely out of love to God and a belief that 
love to God is best shown by love to man. Therefore, that 
being the case, I feel that I could not possibly spend a few 
moments more usefully than in speaking to you a word of 
encouragement, if, indeed, any word of mineis at all needed, 
to inspirit you in what I feel to be a great and admirable 
cause. If I were to ask you the reasons why so many of 
you, no doubt engaged as you are in laborious occupations 
of one kind and another, are willing to give up your 
evenings and spend them among the children of the poor, 
you would reply, first of all, that you feel in the very 
strongest way the infinite value of the soul of every child 
of man; and, secondly, that you feel the infinite perilous- 
ness of the temptation to drink. Let me say one word 
about each of those things. First, as to the infinite value 
of every human soul, and, above all, the souls of children. 
If I were to ask where it was that we learned that lesson, 
you would, with one voice, truly say that we learned it from 
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. If we look at the 
history of other nations, and if we look at ancient times, 
there was little or no respect for childhood and infancy. 
You know that among the Greeks and Romans, though 
they were the most polishec people the world has ever 
seen, yet the custom of infanticide was frightful. Once 
before the full Senate of Rome a noble Roman senator got 
up and, addressing the four or five hundred senators present, 
said :—“ You know very well that there is not one of you 
who has not got rid of, who has not exposed, at some time 


ee 


A NEW YEAR’S ADDRESS, 251 


or other, one or more children whom you did not wish te 
rear.” That simple fact will show you how cheaply the 
lives of infants were valued even in a country so great, sa 
polished, and so civilized as that. It is the same now in 
heathen countries. I was very much struck once to read 
what was said by the Count de Beaufort who travelled in 
China with one of the Orleans Princes. In the course of a 
single walk round the walls of Canton they had seen the 
bodies of no fewer than seven deserted infants, and the 
French Missionary (Roman Catholics) women constantly 
come out in the morning witha basket, in order to rescue 
the children they might find living to train them up in the 
Catholic faith. Thus you see that it is not in heathenism 
that the respect for children can be learned, but you know 
that that was the very lesson which our Lord constantly 
inculcated. When the Apostles were disputing for prece- 
dence He took a little child and set him in the midst of 
them, that from that little child they might learn the lesson 
of humility. When they were disputing He chose a little 
child to teach them the lessons of purity and innocence, 
and said that unless they would receive the kingdom of 
God as a little child they should in no wise enter therein. 
You know also, how, when the mothers brought their 
children to Christ and the disciples rebuked them, our Lord 
was much displeased. He took them in His arms, laid His 
hands upon them, and blessed them. In these days, be- 
cause of that great lesson which Christ has taught us, a 
child has become infinitely precious in the eyes of every 
Christian man, and perhaps in those of many who have 
not retained a strong hold on the Christian faith. The 
lessons of Christian truth and Christian morality often last 
long after there has been a loss of any real hold upon the 
doctrines of the Christian faith, In the great French 
Kevolution a celebrated prisoner, who was every mcment 
expecting to be hurried off to the guillotine, wrote these 
words :—“ Even at this incomprehensible moment, when 
patriotism and morality and everything that is best and 
greatest seems only to lead more certainly to the scaffold 
or to the prison, yes, and even on the fatal tumbril, if I 
were being taken on my road to the guillotine with nothing 
free but my voice, I could still say ‘Take care’ to any 
child who came too near the wheels. Who knows but 


252 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE., 


what I might save his life, and who knows whether he 
might not live to save his country.” That was the case of a 
French philosopher whose hold upon the Christian faith 
was, very probably, in those dark days, weakened ; but we 
find among Christian people, even among the very lowest, 
humblest, and poorest, the sanctity of the children is 
infinitely respected. There are stories of modern warfare 
where contending armies on the verge of battle have paused 
until a little child, who happened to have strayed between 
the lines, has got out of the way. There are stories of 
disaster at sea where much heroism has been displayed to 
save infant life, as read for example the case of the loss of 
the Grosvenor, told by Charles Dickens. You can see in 
all this how the lesson of Christ as to the sacredness of 
every human soul, and of the sacredness of the charge 
_ which a nation and all the good men of a nation ought to 
take of its children, has been learned very widely among 
all Christian men. I think I need say no more about the 
preciousness of the lives, the characters, and the souls of the 
immense number of children whom you have under your 
charge in the Bands of Hope. Let me say a word about 
the peril from which you are trying to save these children 
—strong drink. I will tell you a sight that very much 
affected me lately. On Christmas Day I happened to be 
walking along the Embankment, and I saw a fine young 
sailor lad of about seventeen, hopelessly intoxicated and 
utterly unable to walk. He was supported on either side 
by friends—possibly brothers—but he invariably sank 
down and rolled in the mire of the street. The first 
thought that struck me was the possible ruin of a human 
soul; and the second was—-what a way to spend Christ- 
mas Day. What must have been the feelings of the 
publican who supplied that young man with drink? And 
that was all that he could do—trained, no doubt, in a 
Christian country, and in Christian ways—to express his 
joy, or to join in the common joy we all feel at the birth 
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It reminded me at 
once of those ghastly records that have now been published 
for three consecutive years by the United Kingdom Alliance 
of the events that take place in the United Kingdom 
during the week from Christmas Day and the first week of 
the new year. I am speaking to you the language of truth 


A NEW YEAR’S ADDRESS. 253 


ro 


and soberness when I say that I do not believe any country 
in the world, or any epoch of history, could possibly furnish 
so ghastly and terrible a record of every kind of human 
crime and human misery as this. The record is for the 
week of the year when we most celebrate our home gather- 
ings, and when the hearts of most of us are filled with joy 
and hope; and the week of the year when we ought to be 
making our best resolutions for the conduct of another 
year—these weeks are so filled with crime of all kinds that 
it becomes almost impossible to feel that we are living ina 
truly Christian land. I would stake the whole Temperance 
cause simply upon that evidence, which has nothing 
whatever to do with Temperance argument, but is simply 
made up of cuttings from various newspapers published in 
all parts of the United Kingdom. In that record you will 
find a great number of cases of cruelty to children, and of 
the deaths of children due to drink, making up a ghastly 
and unparalleled total of human vice and misery solely 
owing to this one cause. As I looked at the young sailor 
T thought of the disgrace he had brought upon his uniform, 
of the disgrace he had brought upon his religion and upon 
his family, and, lastly, thought of the home to which he was 
going. What a fearful thing it must have been for any 
home of which that lad was the son. And then I thought 
of the lad’s future. Possibly, a fine young fellow like that 
might rise in his profession, and might become commander 
of a ship, but what would be the safety of lives entrusted 
to one like that? If ever you go round Westminster 
Abbey and look at the tomb of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, whe 
lived in the reign of Queen Anne, you will see a sculptured 
imitation of a shipwreck. Many of you know that he was 
returning home with his vessels from a very successful 
voyage indeed, when in all the joy of conquest his fleet was 
wrecked upon the Scilly Isles, and every soul on board 
three of the vessels perished, including Sir Cloudesley 
Shovel himself. History says that the reason of that loss 
was that the greater part of the crews of these magnificent 
vessels were in astate of brutal intoxication in the joy of 
their coming home. Reason enough, therefore, why one 
with the tastes of that sailor lad should not be entrusted 
with precious lives and property. 

After taking a gloomy outlook in regard to foreign 


254 PLATFORM AIDS—TEMPERANCE, 


matters, the speaker proceeded—I hope that none of us 
may live to see the weakening of the great name, or dimi- 
nution of the splendid heritage of England, but I must 
remind you that not once or twice England has been in 
danger far less from her foreign enemies than from her own 
vices, and if there be one thing that will ever humiliate 
England and drag her flag down in the dust it will be 
exactly with her as it has been with nation after nation in 


the long course of history, that her vices will be made the ~ 


instrument to scourge her. 


“Vain mightiest fleet of iron framed, 
Vain those all-conquering guns, 
Unless proud England keeps unstained 
The true hearts of her sons.” 


I do not think we should be guilty of anything short of 
judicial blindness if we fail to recognise that in times of 
war again and again England has been more seriously 
endangered by the national vice of drunkenness of her 
soldiers and sailors than she ever has been by the forces of 
the enemy. I was reading only yesterday morning in the 
life of Sir John Moore that in that famous retreat to 
Corunna—which has been so magnificently described in 
“The Burial of Sir John Moore ”—he was so horrified with 
the drunken demoralized British troops, that he called them 
all together and told them that he was absolutely ashamed 
of them, and that rather than they should continue as they 
were, he would prefer to die by the bullets of his own fol- 
lowers. He said he regarded them as being a greater 
disgrace and injury to the cause of their own country than 
the enemy against whom he was fighting. Inthe Burmese 
War the British were constantly surprised. Not a single 
regiment could be brought into action because the soldiers 
had been indulging in drink. There was one exception—a 
man who had a total abstinence regiment. That man was 
one of the best, one of the greatest, one of the bravest, and 
certainly one of the holiest whom England has had the 
honour of producing—that man was Sir Henry Havelock, 
The General in that extremity of danger made this remark- 
able speech—‘ Call Havelock, his men are never drunk 
and he is always ready.” I dare say you remember a still 
more emphatic and striking warning than that, when the 


A NEW YEAR’S ADDRESS. 255 


whole Empire of India trembled in the balance, and that 
was in the great Indian Mutiny, when, after infinite diffi- 
culty, and courage, and fighting battle after battle, out 
army had at last advanced to Delhi and taken the out- 
posts; then the Sepoys, having left all the drink which we 
ourselves had imported into India, knowing what the temp- 
tation of the English soldier is—the English under the very 
guns of the enemy, when they had only partially conquered 
that stronghold of the mutiny, rushed upon the liquor 
stores, broke open every possible place where there was 
gin, rum, brandy, beer, or ale; and the next day, with the 
whole cloud of the Sepoy army hanging around the environ- 
ments of the town, with its fortress actually frowning upon 
them, the whole of the British army were in a state of such 
disgraceful intoxication—Sir John Kaye tells the story, 
and there is the testimony of those who were there—that 
not a single stroke could be made and not a single step 
undertaken on the second day after the British army had 
reached Delhi. The historian says, that if ever there was a 
time when it seemed likely that we should lose entirely the 
whole results of every conquest which had taken place 
since Clive, more than 100 years before, won the battle of 
Plessy, that was the day, and the cause was the national 
vice of the British soldier. If these warnings of history are 
no warnings to us then we are either very blind or not 
patriots. If, therefore, at this hour I still feel hope in the 
name and in the destinies of England, it is because I feel 
that although this terrible vice is the danger of our armies, 
there is at any rate a vast band of persons engaged heartily 
in the endeavour to put it down. We may not conquer it, 
but our efforts do tend to repress it, and since every great 
movement must, in the long run, win the victory, I do not 
despair of ultimately keeping down (especially through the 
agency which you yourselves put in force) this deadly vice. 
The work in which you are engaged is both beneficent and 
Christian. The peril of drink which hangs over hundreds 
and thousands of children is more frightful than death in 
any form, and you are to the best of your power endeavour- 
ing to save them from this overwhelming danger and 
temptation. All I can say is that you could not possibly 
be engaged in a more sacred or blessed work, and that 
every one of you, in proportion as you carry on the work 


256 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 


in the same spirit of self-sacrifice and singleness of heart — 
you have hitherto shown, will hear one day from the lips of 
your Saviour, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of 
the least of these ye have done it unto Me.” 


V. MISCELLANEOUS SECTION. 


I. Anent “Taking the Chair.” Sy Rev. J. Hunt 
CooKE. 


THE chairmanship of a public meeting sometimes involves 
grave responsibility. In the majority of cases it is merely 
a position of honour, but at times it may require much 
skill, and an important meeting may fail for want of 
efficient conduct. Every gentleman who is likely ever to 
be called to such a position ought to make himself ac- 
quainted with those precedents and practices which have 
such general acceptance that, if attended to, they will pre- 
serve order and give fair opportunity to all who desire to 
speak. On this question there is no written law, but a 
recognised method of procedure to which it is well to 
adhere. 

The chairman should be assured first of all that he has 
the confidence of the meeting. If he has been advertised 
to preside, that is sufficient. If not, he should be elected 
by a show of hands from those present ere he accept the 
post. He should determine to act with strict impartiality, 
and resolve that every one who has a right to speak or 
vote should have that right unimpeded. And, further, 
that no ore else shall take part except by the clearly 
expressed wish of the meeting. He should see that the 
secretary, or some other qualified person, sits at his right 
hand for reference on any subject peculiar to the society 
in whose interest the meeting is held. 

His first duty is to open the meeting. This should be 
by a brief statement of the object, made either by himself 
or some other person appointed todoso. He then calls 


ANENT “TAKING THE CHAIR* 257 


on the secretary to read minutes, or any communications he 
may have. Ifthe meeting be of a religious character, these 
should be preceded by a short act of worship—at the least 
a prayer for Divine guidance. It is well tohave an agenda 
paper previously prepared, containing a list of proceedings. 
This should be rigidly adhered to, and the business taken 
in the order laid down, unless any unforeseen circumstances 
render a departure desirable. As a rule, the less a chair- 
man says, the better. There may be occasions on which it 
is his duty to put life and energy into the proceedings ; 
but in a business meeting it shows wisdom to keep to the 
routine, and rarely to express an opinion on the topics 
discussed. 

When any one rises to propose a resolution, the chairman 
should demand a copy in writing; he may, however, 
consent for some one present to prepare it whilst the pro- 
poser is addressing the meeting. The resolution must 
then be seconded, or it comes to nought. But any one 
present may second it formally by merely bowing to the 
chairman, and reserve his right to speak and to vote against 
it if he please. After a resolution has been proposed and 
seconded, the chairman should read it to the meeting, and 
must allow free speech to all who desire to speak on the 
subject, for or against. He may check, and even stop, any 
speaker who does not confine his remarks to the matter of 
the resolution, although on this considerable latitude has to 
be allowed if no objection be raised. No one may speak 
twice on the same resolution, except the proposer, who has 
the right of reply. After his reply the debate is at an end, 
and the vote must be taken. The chairman decides as to 
the result, but must not object to his decision being chal- 
lenged, when tellers should be appointed—one or more 
from each side—and the vote taken a second time. 

At any time during the debate, before the proposer’s 
reply, an amendment may be proposed ; this, too, needs a 
seconder, and may then be discussed, and those who have 
spoken to the original motion may speak on the subject of 
the amendment. The proposer of an amendment has a 
right of reply. Then the chairman reads the amendment, 
and takes a vote for or against. But this vote is simply to 
the effect that the resolution be thus amended ; the amend- 
ment has to be put again, for and against, as a substantive 

Ss 


258 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 


resolution. This is frequently neglected, but ought not te 
be, for, strictly speaking, the acceptance of an amendment 
only alters, but does not pass the resolution. 

After the amendment is settled, before the resolution 
(amended or not) is put to the vote, another amendment 
may be proposed, seconded, and proceeded with in a 
similar way. But no amendment can be admitted that 
will alter any amendment that has been previously carried. 
It is not even considered proper to admit an amendment 
affecting the former part of the wording of the original 
resolution, if one affecting any of the latter clauses has been 
previously considered. 

Two amendments cannot be before the meeting at the 
same time. A chairman should insist on this. If any one 
present wishes to alter an amendment, he can only do it by 
‘advising the meeting to reject the one before it, and under- 
taking after its rejection to introduce the amended form in 
the regular way. 

But, if no objection be raised, the chairman may some- 


times simplify business by permitting the proposer of a ~ 


resolution or amendment (with the consent of the seconder) 


to alter its wording, to meet some difficulties or desires ~ 


expressed during the debate; but this ought not to be 
done if any one object. Although not quite regular, it is 
frequently found to secure the unanimity desired. 


At any time during the meeting, even whilst some one ~ 


is speaking, any one may stop the proceedings by “rising 


to order.” This sometimes tries a chairman. He must at | 
once insist on the supposed disorder being stated as briefly — 


as possible. If need be, he should appeal at once to the 


secretary, if the question refer to any rule of the society, © 
and then announce his decision, and proceed in accordance ~ 
with it. If any one object, the aggrieved person should © 
only be allowed to hand in his objection in writing, to be © 
afterwards considered, when, if correct, it renders the sub- © 
sequent proceedings null and void. This is just the case — 


in which good chairmanship is important, and he who 


undertakes the office ought to be prepared with prompt — 


and definite action for the emergency. 


A debate may be stopped at the close of any speaker's © 


address, by one of the three following proposals :—1st, 
That we now adjourn the meeting. 2nd, That the vote be 


ANENT “TAKING THE CHAIR»? 259 


now taken. 3rd, That we now pass on to the next 
business. But no one of these may be moved by any one- 
who has previously spoken to the question before the 
meeting, but when raised any one may speak upon it. 

If the first, “That we now adjourn,” be carried, that 
brings the meeting toaclose. If the second, “ That the 
vote be now taken,” be carried, that brings the discussion 
to a close, and the proposer of the resolution should be 
called upon to reply, and the vote be then taken. This is 
a very undesirable way of terminating a discussion, but 
under certain circumstances it may be found necessary. 
The object of introducing the third, “That we now pass 
on to the next business,” is to avoid coming to any decision 
on the question. This is a far better way of leaving the 
matter undecided than by what is called “the previous 
question.” 

There is a method of superseding a question before the 
House of Commons, which is called “meving the previous 
question.” It is found useful there because well under- 
stood. The resolution really is, “That the question be now 
put,” and the object sought is the reverse, being that the 
questions be zo¢ now put; but the rules of the House do 
not permit a negative resolution, therefore the proposer 
votes against his own resolution. It cannot be introduced 
when there is an amendment before the House, and it does 
not stop the debate on the main question. The fact is, 
that it is not generally understood, and frequently when 
introduced leads toa discussion as to its meaning. So 
that a chairman would show wisdom by objecting to its 
introduction, and requesting the proposer to state his pro- 
position in terms all can understand, such as “ That we 
at once pass on to the next business, and leave the con- 
sideration and decision of the question now before us to 
some future time.” 

It is an open question whether a chairman has both a 
vote and a casting vote. In some Parliamentary proce- 
dures he has, and in others he has not. Asai rule, it is 
more dignified for a chairman to remain neutral, and if his 
casting vote is needed, to give it in that way that will bring 
the lesser change, which will generally be against the 1eso- 
lution. 

If two persons rise together to address the meeting, the 


260 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS, 


—— 


chairman should select the one he noticed first, and should © 
not allow his decision to be questioned. Decision and 
impartiality are the two pillars of a chairman’s strength. 
Whatever his private opinions and feelings may be, the 
rule has been placed in his hands, and he deserves double — 
honour if he rule firmly and well. There is a time to 
be humble and submissive, and a time to be regal and 
authoritative. 


II. A Parable. Sy Rev. SAMUEL VINCENT. 


THERE was once a man, no matter when and no matter © 
where, who was neither well nor ill, but out of sorts, as we © 
say. He came of a healthy stock, lived in bracing air and © 
on wholesome food, but appetite, vigour, and cheerfulness © 
were all gone. He was not suffering from consumption, © 
fever, gout, paralysis, or epilepsy ; there was no organic or ~ 
acute disease, but he had fallen into a low, melancholy, ~ 
lifeless condition, and in body and mind was a man “in — 
doleful dumps.” He pitied himself, of course; felt his — 
pulse, looked at his tongue in the glass, and complained to 
his neighbours, who gave him advice enough to fill a book, © 
But none of them seemed to understand his case. . 

One night he “dreamed a dream which was not all a_ 
dream.” He heard all the principal members of his body 
talking together on the low state of the general health. - 
He was not at all surprised at this conference, for the most — 
wonderful things seem natural in dreams. They were all” 
complaining with one consent that there was “no life”; 
and each shook his head, so to speak, as if toimply, “If all 
were like me, what life would there be!” Then they began © 
to boast, as people do who are conscious of deserving blame; © 
and the Feet began it, the lowest members of “all first. 
They said :—“What a weight we have to bear up under all © 
the day long! and what with walking and running as fast © 
and as far as the Body wishes, with all the other members. ; 
pressing down upon us from above, and the rough dusty © 
roads pressing up against us from below, we are a “constant _ 
wonder to ourselves.” i 

And the Hands said :—*We have to do all the hard , 
work of the world; and then the care of the Body, too, ~ 


A PARABLE. 261 


comes chiefly upon us, for the face can’t be washed nor the 
mouth supplied without our aid, and what more can we 
do?” 

And the Brain said:—“I am out of sight, and I keep 
silent, but what a General is to his army, or a King to his 
kingdom, ¢iat am I to the Body. I sit scheming and 
planning all day long, and often far into the night, and ali 
for the general good.” 

“You are very much like me,” the Stomach said to the 
Brain, “unseen, studying the good of all; you give guid- 
ance, and I give food; you are the General, and I the 
Commissary, and as the Eye and Ear bring you stores of 
information, so Hand and Mouth bring me my stores of 
food. Yes, you and I play a large part in making the 
Body what it is.” 

And the Lungs said :—*“ We never think of taking rest 
by day or night, but every moment and every movement 
we use to draw the freshness and brightness of the air of 
heaven into the blood.” 

And the Eye said :—“If it were not for us what would 
the Body know of stars or sunny fields or friendly faces? 
We are like watchmen on a tower, or like lamps that ‘ give 
light to all that are in the house’; and always we are 
looking out on every side for whatever may prove an 
advantage or pleasure for the other members of the Body.” 

And the Ears said :—“ We are always listening day and 
night, and when the Eyes are shut in sleep, we are open, 
and stand like sentinels to guard the slumbering members 
that need rest, and rouse them at the first sound of 
_ danger.” 

And the Tongue, who talked more than all the rest of 
the members put together, and mistook himself for an 
orator, rattled on at a great rate of the service he did in 
giving expression to all the complaints of all the members, 
and, indeed, in acting as their spokesman whenever they 
wanted to communicate their wishes to the outside world, 
and he boasted that his devotion to their interests was so 
great that he was “ never still.” 

And yet all these boasting members agreed as one in 
saying, “ There is something = wrong with this Body.” 

Then the Heart spoke :—and the voice was like rich 
music, for the voice of the Heart is the voice of love and 


262 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 


and loved to hear it, too. “I have been thinking,” the 

Heart said, “for I have thoughts like the Brain, but — 
humbler thoughts than his”—“ No, no,” the Brain said, 
“your thoughts are clearer than mine, and have more of 
heaven in them. I often have to come to you to help me © 
out of my difficulties.” Then the Heart thanked the Brain — 
and said, “I know that God is love, and that God is light, © 
and that He has made me the seat of love, and so my — 
thoughts may shine with heavenly light, but if they do, 


truth ; and all the members could hear this central voice, 


they come from Him; they are not mine, and I should be — 
grieved to seem to boast of them as though I had not — 
received them.” Already, even in this moment, a won- — 
derful change had passed over the spirit of the various — 
members ; the disposition to boast had vanished quite — 
away, and they seemed half ashamed—but the Heart © 
went on:—“I was thinking, that the whole Body is 
nothing else but the union of us members. The Body is 
nothing without us. If the Body is wrong, we must be 
wrong. Now, simply from my central place, 1 am in a 
good position to observe where the blame lies, and I will 
tell you the conclusion that I have come to, with sorrow.” 

Then all the members were silent; even the Lungs 
stopped after a deep sigh, while the Heart beat stroke after 
stroke without speaking. At length he said:—“I don’t 
think I have been beating quite heartily enough.” 

“Oh yes, you have,” the members all said in chorus; 
“Oh yes, you have—the fault has not been with you.” 

And the Heart replied :—“ It is very kind of you to say 
so, but I know that a feeble Heart spreads languor and 
listlessness through all the frame; if I have been sluggish 
in the past, forgive me, and trust me that in the future I 
will beat my very best.” 

Then a confessing mood fell upon all the members. 

The Feet said :—“ We might have moved more briskly 
many a time, and when the Body needed exercise, we 
were reluctant, but now that we see that the Body is 
nothing but the living union of the various members, and 
how much depends on even the least and lowest of them, 
you shall walk on willing Feet.” 

And the Hands said :—“ Whatever we find to do shall 
be done henceforth with all our might ; you shall have ne 


A PARABLE, 263 


grudging work from us, you shall never complain of folded 
Hands, or of ‘Hands that hang down’ when there is 
anything to do for the general good.” 

And the Brain said :—“ On reflection, I can see that I 
did not keep myself to profitable thoughts, but indulged in 
day dreams like an idle apprentice; and yet I compared 
myself toa General and a King! How could the Body 
profit under my care? I was too proud to think true, 
quiet thoughts of daily duties, and to marshal the willing 
members to useful work; but I see at last that, if I am 
above all, ’tis that I may serve all. Forgive me for the 

ast.” 

: And the Stomach said :—“ Hereafter I'll do my very 
best to tackle any tough morsel that may come, and not 
turn up queer at every little thing that hardly suits me, 
and upset the whole Body. I fear that the ‘often 
infirmities’ of the Body have been largely due to my 
’ careless work, but from this hour I will endeavour to send 
timely supplies of wholesome nutriment to every member, 
and I will not be puffed up with my stewardship any 
more.” 

And the Lungs said :—“ We have been too much given 
to sighing, and that is depressing; but we'll take deeper 
draughts of the pure air, and send brighter blood to the 
Brain, and purer, fuller floods of. life to the languid 
members, and spend no more breath in sighs.” 

And the Eyes said :—“We see clearly now that we 
ought to look longest at cheerful sights, and so bear 
cheerier impressions of outward things to the Brain. We 
never saw it so before, but the melancholy and gloom of 
the mind may have been produced or prolonged by us, but 
you shall never find us from this time gazing at sad sights, 
and only glancing at the gay and happy ones; we have 
looked down to the earth too much, and up to the heavens 
too little; we have forgotten too long a pleasant saying 
that the Ears once reported to me, that ‘ Daysprings are 
from on high.’” 

And the Ears said :—‘ We have often listened more 
willingly to slander and blame than to commendation and 
praise ; to what was base and bad in men, rather than to 
what was noble and good ; and this we see would make the 
mind morbid and sour, and ¢ka¢ the Body, as vinegar will 


264 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 


sour the cask. Hereafter we will give the preference to 
things pure and good.” 

And the Tongue confessed :—“‘I have forgotten that 
there is ‘a time to be silent, and I have often spoken so 
unadvisedly as to ‘set on fire the whole course of nature,’ 
and more frequently still I have grumbled at small 
grievances when I ought to have been singing of great 
mercies. But I pray that hereafter 1 may never cease to 
interpret this ancient saying to all the members, ‘ A whole- 
some Tongue is a tree of life.’” 

So the members resolved that night, without an hour’s 
delay, to co-operate unanimously for the general welfare, 
and this they agreed could only be done by each member 
doing quietly, thoroughly, cheerfully, and constantly the 
work that God had fitted him for. 

Just before the conference of the members of the Body 
broke up, the Brain said that one of his faculties, Memory, 
had suggested to him a fragment of quotation from an old 
Book held in the highest reverence amongst men ; and that 
if the Tongue would aid Memory, this quotation might 
fitly conclude their conversation; and so these words 
were heard :—“ The Body is not one member, but many.— 
And the Eye cannot say unto the Hand, ‘I have no need 
of thee’; nor again the Head tothe Feet, ‘I have no need 
of you.’ Nay, much more those members of the Body 
which seem to be more feeble, are necessary.—That there 
should be no schism in the Body; but that the members 
should have the same care one for another. And whether 
one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or 
one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with 
it, 

Instead of applause, there was silence, for each member 
was thinking of the peculiar honour and usefulness of Zzs 
own work, and yet how utterly useless z# would be alone, 
without the work of many co-operating brethren. And 
each was heartily content to be a useful part of an har- 
monious whole. 

In that silence, the man himself fell into a deep, dream- 
less sleep. 

When he awoke in the morning, he had forgotten what 
he had heard upon his bed at night, but he was conscious 
of unusual vivacity and cheerfulness ; his brain was active, 


So 


ee 


WE KNEW THAT BEFORE. 265 


and his walk was brisk. There was no melancholy, nor 
dyspepsia, nor sluggishness—the man was all alive. 

To friends who inquired for his health, he replied that 
he felt altogether a brand-new man ; but could not in any 
way account for the change. Nor did he ever unriddle the 
happy mystery, till one day the recollection of his dream 
gave him the missing clue. 

But the several members of the Body, as they compared 
notes that night on the doings of the day, said, with the 
heartiest satisfaction they had experienced for many a 
long year, “ We can account for the change, if 4e cannot ; 
we are now working happily, and harmoniously, and 
helpfully together, each doing well his part.” And all 
agreed that from this simple cause, a happy and surprising 
change had come to pass, both for the whole Body and for 
each several member. 

Let each member of our Churches consider this matter 
well. And may we al/“grow upinto Him in all things 
which is the Head, even Christ: from whom the whole 
Body fitly joined together and compacted by that which 
every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in 
the measure of every part, maketh increase of the Body 
unto the edifying of itself in love.” 


III. We Knew that Before. Jy the Rev. James 
ComPER GRAY. 


ONCE upon a time,—so we read in most veritable bird- 
history,—the feathered tribes sent a deputation to their 
exalted neighbour, the magpie, humbly requesting his 
highness to give them a few lessons in the art and science 
of building. Having just dined most luxuriously, and 
being, therefore, in an excellent humour ; feeling, moreover, 
a little proud of the attention shown him,—for to whose 
stature does not a humble deputation add at least a cubit ? 
—Sir Pie replied, that he would be only too glad to place 
his gifts, in the architectural line, at the service of his 
friends, whose homeless condition he had often deplored. 
The annals of the woodlands state that the hour at length 
arrived when representatives from all the tribes assembled 
at the trysting tree to take their first lesson. “ First,” said 


266 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 


the noble teacher, “ you must take two sticks—thus; and — 
lay one across the other—so: and then ,” but before 
he could proceed, a blackbird on a neighbouring bough 
twittered out— We knew that before.” With a look that 
cought to have annihilated his sable brother, Sir Pie con- 
tinued,—“ And then you must be prepared with fibres and 
moss wherewith to bind the sticks together and to the — 
bough on which you have placed them,—in this way.” 
Hereupon there was a vast chirruping all round. The 
birds wagged their tails, and nodded their heads know- — 
ingly to each other, and said, “ We knew that before.” As 
soon as silence was restored, the august teacher continued — 
but only to be assured at every step that all he showed 
them was known before. Rendered at last indignant by 
these repeated interruptions, the honourable baronet 
angrily exclaimed—*“ Why, then, if you knew it all before, 
did you send for me?” Hereupon he took his departure 
in a great dudgeon, advising them, as he went, to finish 
the house which he had only half built. This they were ~ 
unable to do, “and that,” says the chronicler, “is the 
reason why, to this day, Sir Pie lives in a ceiled house, 
while all his neighbours’ dwellings are open to the sky. 
They were so proud of what they thought they knew, that 
they had not patience to wait for the explanation of things 
they did not quite understand.” 

Now, all good stories of the old-fashioned order finish 
with a moral. And if, in this case, the moral is longer — 
than the story, the fault is his who recorded the history. 
What right had he to write a parable so pregnant with in- 
struction and practical uses? He should have considered 
his readers, and made it less suggestive. Our moral is 
this. We are building for eternity, and are anxious to 
build well. We know a little of our craft as builders, but 
we do not know all. We have, so we think, begun in the 
right way, and on the right foundation, and are anxious 
to continue right, and bring the topstone on with shouting. 
To make sure work, as we proceed during this new year, 
we propose to call to our aid the wisdom and experience 
of master builders. We want their advice as to the site 
we should choose, the materials we should select, and the 
best method of combining them. We want our edifice to 
be, when finished, one harmonious whole, such as we can 


WE KNEW THAT BEFORE. 267 


contemplate with satisfaction. Entering on this new year, 
we will not, therefore, despise the things we knew before ; 
but use them as so much vantage ground for the future. 
That is how the world has advanced in knowledge and 
civilization. Each to-day has used the knowledge of yester- 
day as the standing-points for to-morrow’s achievements. 
If the world were to despise things known before it would 
each day begin de novo, and make no progress. Christian 
men, and Sunday-school teachers, too, may apply the 
lesson. Calling to our aid these master builders, as we 
enter this new year, they may see the wisdom of reminding 
us of well-known facts and acknowledged principles. It is 
not for us to cry out, “We knew all that before,” but 
rather to note the process, while observing their instruc- 
tions, by which things already known are to help us for- 
ward to the acquisition of unknown information, and the 
performance of hitherto unattempted works. The mathe- 
matical student, while pushing his investigations into the 
mysteries of numbers, constantly refreshes his memory of 
the elementary rules. The more frequently he does this, the 
more unerring is their application, and the more faultless 
his reasoning. The same rule applies to religious study 
and teaching. To advance ourselves, and to take others 
with us, first principles must be ever remembered, fre- 
quently applied, and often enforced, and illustrated by 
well-known facts. Recapitulation is the secret of success- 
ful study. Now we are very anxious that to all Sunday- 
school friends this year should be an eminently successful 
one. Therefore, we say, take all the good of the past with 
you; use it, and keep on adding to the store and in 
harmony with it, that the finished structure may be homo- 
geneous. Some time ago we saw a mansion of quite palatial 
dimensions, but of most grotesque appearance. In some 
remote age it had been commenced by some one whose 
means were limited, or who did not live to complete it. 
The next heir, rejecting the previous design—as who 
should say, “I knew ail that before”—commenced at one 
end of the original edifice with a new and more elaborate 
idea of his own. He was followed by another, and yet 
another, each regardless of the past, each ambitious for the 
future. We presume the mansion may now be regarded 
as finished. But what a strange conglomeration of material 


268 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 


and style : brick, stone, marble, Gothic, Tudor, Corinthian ; 
certainly composite in every respect! The whole stands a 
stupendous monument to the folly of successive builders, 
who slighted “things known before.” 


IV. Good Listening. 


MUCH is said now-a-days about the art of preaching, and 
very little of the art of listening. It is often assumed that 
good preaching will command good listening; but if good 
preaching is that which converts sinners and builds up 
Christians, there must, be something more than mere pas- 
sivity on the part of the hearer. Moral good cannot be 
poured into a man like water into a barrel. 


Good listening requires attention 5 and to attend to any- — 
thing means to hold one’s self to it, and to abstain from — 
doing other things. Don’t count the rafters, nor the © 


arches, nor the pillars in the chapel. If you remember 
the number of rafters, you will be pretty sure to forget the 


sermon. Never mind the embellishments on the walls or © 


in the windows. The inscriptions can be read at any time, 
the sermon can only be heard now. Buy a hymn-book 
and read it at home; don’t open it in chapel except when 
the hymn is given out, and then be sure and keep the 


place. It is amazing how many hymns some people read © 


during sermon-time. A thorough inspection of your 
neighbours’ bonnet, cloak, dress, overcoat, and the parting 
of their back-hair must be deferred until another time. In 


short, don’t allow your eyes or your thoughts to be — 


“wandering, like the fool’s, to the ends of the earth.” 
Remember you are in God’s house, where inattention fs 
irreverence, and irreverence is sin. 


Besides these things which are to be left undone, there © 


are certain things which ought to be done. Bear in mind 
that you are to be benefited by what you hear, and under 


stand, and remember. You are to be benefited, not the © 


preacher, nor your neighbour principally, but yourself. 
The effect of good listening upon the preacher is simply 


incalculable—in fact, it is one of the prime factors of good — 


preaching. Some one has said that three things are neces- 


sary for a great speech—a great theme, a great occasion, ~ 


and a great man. A preacher always has a great theme, 


eS 


a ee 


WE KNEW THAT BEFORE. 269 


but a great occasion can only grow out of the mental and 
moral attitude of his audience. No man can do his best, 
preaching in an empty house ; and the effect of indifferent 
listeners is often even more depressing than empty benches. 
No one who is accustomed to teach a Sunday-school class 
has failed to note the painful and almost paralysing in- 
fluence of listless and inattentive scholars. We demand 
that the preacher shall declare the truth with earnestness, 
with tenderness, with affection; but how can a man be 
earnest, or tender, or affectionate, towards people, many of 
whom are as insensible to what he is saying as blocks of 
wood? We have known speakers who have declared that 
they were obliged to select men, here and there in the 
audience, who gave attention, and preach to them, in 
order to feel that they were preaching to living beings, 
and thus avoid the depressing influence of an inattentive 
audience. 

Nor is it in the pulpit alone that good listening helps to 
make good preaching. Say what we will about inward 
motives which should prompt the minister to make care- 
ful preparation, if he feels that he is preparing to say what 
few care to hear, he will lack that vital inspiration which 
the knowledge of another’s want can alone supply. Open 
opposition arouses, indifference shrivels his powers. Even 
God does not teach His most precious truths, nor impart 
His choicest blessings, save to those who seek them; and 
the man who continually preaches to inattentive hearers 
either becomes hardened to it, and does his duty per- 
functorily, or he wears himself out with anxiety and self- 
accusation. 


V. Our Unseen Allies. Zy Rev. R. H. Howarp. 


A GOOD story is told of a certain English officer who, 
during Wellington’s campaign in Spain, with a mere frag- 
ment of his original, but now sadly decimated -command, 
was ordered at a given signal, during the progress of an 
important and decisive engagement, to attack a certain 
French battery that with terrific effect was pouring shot 
and shell into the ranks of the English. At the appointed 
moment, with the most desperate valour, the English officer 


270 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS, 


at the head of his slender column flung himself on the 
seemingly impregnable position of the enemy. He antici- 
pated nothing but to be cut utterly to pieces. He felt 
confident that he was leading a forlorn hope. 


“His but to do and die.” 


What, therefore, was his surprise, not to say amazement, as 
he neared the battery, but just now flaming and thundering 
in a manner most formidable and appalling, to find it silent 
and deserted. How was this? Though he had not been 
advertised of the fact, yet the prudent, far-seeing com- 
mander had taken care to order several other companies 
from as many different points to charge the same position 
at the same moment with the one afore-mentioned. The 
result was, the stronghold was carried almost before the 
valiant soldier, who had showed himself so ready to lay 
down his life for his country, had had an opportnuity to 
strike a blow; and all because those who were for him 
were so much more numerous, as well as invincible, than 
he had himself had any conception of. His unseen allies 
greatly outnumbered the members of his own command, 
and actually fought his battle for him. 

Thus let the believer always bear in mind that, however 
dificult or perilous the task or duty assigned him, and 
however seemingly inadequate his own means or resources 
for its accomplishment, he has yet no occasion on that 
account for despondency or despair. There are always 
more, in every crisis whatever, to sympathize with and to 
help him than he dreams of. His unseen allies, as in the 
case of the gallant captain above referred to, vastly out- 
number his own visible forces. The very stars in their 
courses fight for him, and hence of course, against his 
enemies. All the activities of nature and providence con- 
spire to give effect to his deeds. The mightiest angels in 
heaven, we are assured, are enlisted under his banner— 
encamp nightly round about, and deliver him. We believe 
that the old Revolutionary patriot uttered no less truth 
than sentiment when in a moment of inspiration he cried: 
“ Besides, sir, we shall not be left to fight our battles alone. 
There is a just God in heaven who, if we do our duty, will 
fight our battles for us.” 


——— a 


CONSISTENCY. 271 


VI. Consistency. 


CONSISTENCY is a jewel. There is a good story told 
which has passed from mouth to mouth until it has become 
public property, of a clerical meeting not a hundred miles 
from New York. A certain temperance movement was 
under discussion, and it was Brother A.’s turn, and he said: 
“These brethren mean well in their imposing of total 
abstinence upon us under penalty of not being regarded as 
Christians ; but the fact is I do not believe in their cause 
nor their principles. I very much doubt, in fact, if the 
practice of total abstinence is a duty for us. That is all I 
have to say.” Then it was Dr. B.’s turn, who began, 
solemnly and slowly: “I am profoundly grieved to hear 
the brother express himself so. I believe the practice of 
total abstinence would be of advantage for the world, for 
the Church, and I may say for the brother himself. I have 
made total abstinence my practice for forty years, and—” 
Here Dr. C. broke in: “Why, Dr. B., you don’t mean to 
say that you do not drink a glass of wine at awedding? I 
have seen you do it myself.” ‘ Well—hem! hem !—I have 
sometimes made an exception of a wedding.” “ But, Dr. 
B., do you mean to say that you do not now and then 
take a sip of cognac? You certainly do.” “Ah! well— 
hem! hem!—perhaps I do occasionally—hem! hem !— 
when I think—hem! hem!—it would do me good. But, 
as I was saying, for forty years total abstinence has been 
my practice, gexerally!” It was another Dr. C., who 
knew how to use the English language vigorously and who 
was once reading a very strenuous paper on total abstinence 
before the same clerical club—so the story goes—when the 
entertainer went out to tell his wife how many she was to 
provide for at supper. ‘“ What are they doing ?” she asked, 
and was told the subject of the essay. “ What shall I do?” 
she cried, “Here I have brandied peaches, and it is too 
late to change.” “Make no change,” said her husband. 
“Tt will be all right.” The essayist had the post of honour 
at the right of the lady of the house, and she presented 
him with a dish of the peaches. After a while she said to 
him: “ Dr. C., won't you allow me to give you some more 
of these peaches?” “Thank you,” he replied. “They 
are very excellent.” A little later she said : “Dr. C., may I 


272 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 


— 


not give you another peach?” “No, I thank you,” said he, 
apologetically, “but I will take a little more of the gravy.” 
How different the story of President Fairchild, of Oberlin, 
who was about to visit Europe, and a guest at the table 
told him that there he would certainly have to drink wine. 
“No,” cried out Dr. Fairchild’s little son, “my father can 
be trusted when he is away from home.” And he did not 
taste wine on the trip. He would not disappoint the con- 
fidence of his boy. 


VII. The Religious Mosquito. Sy tue Rev. C.A. 
STARK. 


WHO has not been tormented at some time by that pesti- 
lent, persistent fellow whom, for want of a better name, 
we will call the Religious Mosquito? The Religious 
Mosquito is very small, but he has a wonderful sting. He 
is hard to see, but you can always hear him. Here he 
comes. What a contemptible, vicious song he sings— 
hum-m-m, buz-z-z. You put out your hand to brush him 
away ; he has gone; no, he has only shifted to the other 
side. You make another pass at him; but he has eluded 
you, and there he is back again. You catch yourself a 
ringing slap on the cheek, but you did not catch Azm. 
There is silence a moment ; and here he is again, singing 
his dreary song louder than ever. You will not get rid of 
him till he has had his fill of your blood, or you have fled. 
The Religious Mosquito is a man who has got lodged in 
his head a small idea (generally erroneous) on some point 
of doctrine, experience, or practice which he hums over 
and over, and makes the accompaniment to a vicious attack 
on his fellow Christians. There are many beasts of prey en- 
countered on the road to heaven, but nothing so bad as the 
Religious Mosquito. The lion, the loud-defiant infidel ; 
the wild boar out of the woods, fierce, headlong passion ; 
the tiger of revenge ; the stealthy, gliding serpent of secret 
sin ; all these may be met and vanquished ; but who ever 
came off more than second best from an encounter with 
this contemptible, buzzing unwearied fellow? He has an 
army of texts, a whole artillery train of wonderful, plaus- 
ible comments, arguments, and explanations of the simplest 


_— ——— 


oe 


a 


—<— 


THE RELIGIOUS MOSQUITO. 273 


passages of Scripture, that he dexterously draws up and 
manceuvres till we would not be surprised to see him prove, 
by skilful exegesis of the Scriptures, that the moon is made 
out of green cheese. 

Is there any profit in the Religious Mosquito? Can we 
discover any possible design in his creation or permission ? 
Dr. Bushnell, an American writer, says that gnats, wasps, 
sandflies; and all the small stinging tribes, were designed 
to read us a sharp lesson on the pestilent, irritating char- 
acter of sin. Surely here, if anywhere, do we find the end 
served by the Religious Mosquito. He teaches us by a 
most painful practical lesson what a plague a diseased petty 
worrying of some small fragment of truth may become. 
Each of these pestilent fellows has got hold of a piece of 
truth, sometimes an infinitesimally small piece, yet a bit of 
truth. With this he makes a sting and a song, and goes 
after his fellow-Christians, probing their patience, poisoning 
their hopes, spoiling their peace. The Religious Mosquito 
teaches us to prize the breath and light of the whole 
truth. 

He is also a means of grace. Possibly Paul’s “thorn in 
the flesh,” his “messenger of Satan sent to buffet him,” was 
a Religious Mosquito. Certainly he met the tribe; for 
does he not ask the prayer of the Church that he might be 
delivered from “unreasonable,” or, as the margin has it, 
“absurd men”; and what can be more absurd than a full- 
fledged Religious Mosquito? Still he may be a means of 
grace. It is a trial of patience and faith to have the 
Religious Mosquito come with his venomous sting, turning 
the sweet savour of the noblest passages of God’s Word 
into the vapidness or bitterness of some small theological 
crotchet. When the harpies in Virgil’s description came 
down on the feast of the Trojan refugees, they defiled more 
than they ate; and the Religious Mosquito has spoiled 
many a good morsel of the bread of life, There are some 
texts that insensibly bring to mind these imitators, so that 
one can hardly taste the mind of the Spirit in them any 
more : 

The Religious Mosquito prepares us for heaven. There 
will be no more buzzing, stinging, pertinacious propagator 
of small doctrine there. Zere will be rest from theological 
Criticism and pious vagaries. “The inhabitant shall not 

T 


274 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 


say, I am sick” ; how often the Religious Mosquito makes 
us say that here! He also makes us sick at times of the 
name of religion. Among the many scourges which drive 
us away from our resting-places here, this whip of very 
small cords, the Religious Mosquito tribe, may prove at 
last not the least efficient. 

Let us bless God for his permission even of the Religious 
Mosquito. Does he not often make us take up the longing 
cry of the Psalmist, who must have met this pestilent tribe 
in his day—“ Oh! that I had wings like a dove; for then 
would I fly away and be at rest.” 


VIII. Zeal. 


RICHARD NOLLY was a famous prairie preacher, and often 
came upon bands of white heathen in his work. On one 
occasion he discovered the track of an emigrant family, and 
followed it. “What!” said the man who was leading it 
into the wilderness, “a Methodist preacher! I quit Vir- 
ginia to be out of the way of them, but in my settlement 
in Georgia, I thought to be beyond their reach. There 
they were, and they got my wife and daughter into their 
church. Then I come here to Chocktaw, find a good piece 
of land, feel sure that I shall have some peace from the 
preachers, and here is one before I’ve unloaded my wag- 
gon!” “My friend,” said Nolly, “if you go to heaven, 
you'll find Methodist preachers there; and if you go to 
hell, I’m afraid you'll find some there; and you see how it 
is in the world. I’d advise you to come to terms with God, 
and then you'll be at peace with us.” 


IX. Youth. 


A MINISTER may be young, but “let no man despise thy 
youth.” The youth of William Jay was not despised ; nor 
was the youth of John Angell James. When a testy old 
gentleman said to William Jay, when he first began to 
preach, he ‘‘had no notion of beardless boys becoming 
preachers,” he said, “Pray sir, does not Paul say to 
Timothy, ‘Let no man despise thy youth.’ You remind 
me, sir, of what I have read of a French monarch, who had 
received a young ambassador, and complaining said, ‘ yout 


TEXTUAL PREACHING. 295 


master should not have sent a beardless stripling.’” “Sir,” 
said the youthful ambassador, “had my master supposed 
you wanted a beard he would have sent you a goat.” 


X. Pioneer Preachers. 


VERY wonderful is the story of the progress of the gospel 
in the varied regions of the United States. From some of 
the outlying parts they wrote thus for a preacher: “ Be 
sure and send us a good swimmer.’ There was consider- 
able wonder as to what this could mean, till it turned out 
that the district was full of bridgeless streams, and the 
last minister had been drowned because he could not swim. 
George Roberts was one of these intrepid and heroic 
preachers. “George,” said Bishop Ashbury to him on his 
appointment to a circuit, “Where are your clothes?” 
“ Bishop, they are on my back. On receiving my appoint- 
ment at your hand, sir, 1 am not compelled to return to 
my circuit for my clothes, but Iam ready at a moment’s 
warning to go whithersoever you direct.” 


XI. Doctors of Divinity. 


JACOB BRUDER was a Methodist preacher of the American 
prairie, and was a witty, eloquent, Lancaster man. On 
being asked “ How is it you have no Doctors of Divinity,”, 
he replied, “Our divinity is not sick, and does not need 
doctoring.” 


XII. Textual Preaching. 


Mr. BRISBANE, minister of Dunlop Church, was a remark- 
able character, who lived in the beginning of this century. 
Many stories are told of his peculiarities. He had a great 
dislike of all preaching that was not textual. On one 
occasion after hearing a weak sermon from a young 
preacher, and being asked how he liked it, he exclaimed 
with great point, “ The man might have said to the text at 
the beginning what he said to the folk at the end, “ We'll 
maybe meet again and maybe no.” On another occasion 
he heard a sermon by a young minister on the text, “ The 
angel did wondrously, and Manoah, and his wife looked 


276 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 


on.” Some one said, “ What did you think of the sermon?* 
Mr. Brisbane said, ‘The sermon was not unlike the text, 
the lad did wondrously, and the text lookit on.” 


XIII. Profession of Religion. 


THE pioneer preachers of America are a remarkable race, 
men of stamina and men of humour, urgert men whose 
souls are on fire with their message, speaking right out 
what they have to say. They have their faults. They 
are inferior in the eloquencies, and refinements, and 
beauties of civilized society, but withal are men mostly of 
great hearts. James Craven was one of these preachers, 
and a man who had an intense hatred of slavery and of 
alcohol. One day when preaching in Virginia he spoke 
thus, “ There are many professors of religion here to-day ; 
you are sleek, fat, good-looking, yet something is the 
matter. You have seen wheat, which was plump, round, 
and good-looking to the eye, but when you weighed it you 
found it only came to forty-five pounds to the bushel, 
instead of sixty-three. Take a kernel of that wheat between 
your thumb and finger, hold it up, squeeze it, and pop goes 
the weevil. Now for good-looking professors of religion, 
you are plump, round, but you only weigh some forty-five 
pounds to the bushel. What is the matter? When you 
are taken between the thumb of the Law and the finger 
‘of the Gospel, held up to the light and squeezed, out pops 
the whiskey bottle.” 


XIV. Peter Cartwright. 


PETER CARTWRIGHT was one of the pioneer preachers of 
America, and a remarkable character. One day on ap- 
proaching a ferry, he heard the ferryman swearing terribly 
at the sermons of Peter Cartwright, and threatening that 
if he ever had to ferry the preacher across, and knew him, 
he would drown him in the river. Peter, unrecognised, 
said to the ferryman. “I want you to put me across.” 
‘Wait till I’m ready,” said he, and pursued his conversation 
and strictures on Peter Cartwright. Having finished, he 
took the preacher on board, and on reaching the middle 
of the stream, Peter told him to let go his pole. “What 


. 
| 
| 


DR. MOFFAT. 277 


for?” asked the ferryman. ‘ Well, you’ve just been ill- 
using my name, and now you have a chance of doing what 
you threatened.” “Are you Peter Cartwright?” “Yes.” 
Instantly the ferryman closed on the preacher, but he did 
not know his strength, and he quickly had the worst of it. 
Plunging him into the river, Peter asked, “Did you ever 
pray?” “No.” “Then it’s time you did.” “I never will,” 
said the dripping wretch. Splash, Splash, and down goes 
the ferryman again. “ Will you pray now?” asked Peter. 
The gasping man cried “I'll do anything you bid me.” 
Then follow me—“Our Father, which art in heaven.” 
Having repeated the prayer, the ferryman cried, “Now 
let me go!” “Not yet, you must promise me three things. 
1. That you will repeat that prayer morning and evening, 
as long as you live. 2. That you will hear every pioneer 
preacher that comes within five miles of this. 3. That you 
will put every preacher over free of expense. Do you 
promise?” “I promise,” said the ferryman; and, strange 
to say, that same man became a shining light in that 
district. 


XV. Dr. Moffat. 


On Dr. Moffat’s revisiting Carronshire, the home of his 
boyhood, many amusing incidents occurred. He was told 
of an old tailor, Andrew Johnstone by name, who remem- 
bered him. He called and found the old tailor cross-legged 
on his board, busy at work. An old woman, a schoolmate 
of Moffat’s, acted as guide, and introduced him thus, 
“ Andrew, man, here’s Moffat come to see ye, the great 
missionary frae Africa” “Aye, aye, maybe he is,” replied 
the cautious Andrew, “ but there are plenty of folks gang- 
ing about the country noo-a-days, passin’ themsel’s aff 
as great men, and they are just a wheen impostors.” This 
was rather staggering, but it was met with, “O man! 
Andrew, are ye no believin’ me, and I’ve kenned him 
mysel’ a’ my days.” On this, Andrew stopped his needle 
for the first time, looked round on Dr. Moffat, and in an 
oracular tone said, “ Are you aware, sir, that if you were 
really the person you say you are, you would be the father- 
in-law of Livingstone, the African explorer?” “And sc 
I am.” This quiet reply from Dr. Moffat roused the 


278 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 


tailor. Andrew got up, raised his spectacles to get a better 
view of his visitor, and exclaimed, “Is it possible that the 
father-in-law of Livingstone stands under my humble 
roof?” His doubts were dispelled, and he tried by 
effusive expressions of respect to make amends for his 
rudeness. 


XVI. Religious Differences. 


LORD MACAULAY made the remark, on his return from 
India, that he had been living so long in a country where 
the people worshipped cows, that he was unable to attach 
any deep importance on the minor questions which sep- 
arate Christians, 


XVII. The Sleepy Hearer. 


IN the most conspicuous seat in church! A rough-headed, 
good-natured brother, fat and forty-five. When he sings, 
his eyes open as wide as his mouth—a/most as wide—and 
his voice, smooth as a file, is heard above the notes of the 
silver-tongued choir. But when the text is announced, 
how marked the change! His eyes close devoutly, and 
his head nods a gentle approval of every sentence. Happy 
brother! the cares of the world do not worry, and the 
greatest trials fail to ruffle his inward peace. It does him 
good, he says, to dwell under the refreshing sound of the 
Gospel. He leaves the church, if not a wiser, certainly a 
stronger man. 

A kinder critic you will never find; though you may a 
more intelligent one. He likes the way the gospel food is 
served. It is more to him than food ; it is soothing syrup, 
such as no druggists’ shops contain. We met the other day, 
along the dusty road, not far from Fletcher’s barn. He 
took my hand and kindly said: “ Sorry you are going to 
leave us. I never yet have heard you preach a sermon 
that was poor.” 

“True, indeed ! nor a sermon that was good.” 

He took the hint ; he smiled a curious awkward smile, 
and silently he vanished. 

What makes a man sleep in church? Come right down 
to the practical question without further preliminaries. 


SUNDAY SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS. 279 


My dear underpaid sexton, it may be your fault ; would 
that your brains were equal to your hands. You keep out 
the fresh air as though it were a deadly poison. You keep 
the stoves too hot in early spring and autumn; sometimes 
in winter. In such an atmosphere as this, Gabriel might 
blow his trumpet, and, after the novelty of the first five 
minutes, people would grow drowsy. Air! dear sexton! 
give us fresh air, sexton! and keep the foul, close air for 
your own consumption. You are welcome to it! It may 
be that the sleepy brother is sleepy from disease. Like one- 
half of creation he is the happy owner of a torpid liver. 
He must be active, or he cannot keep awake. To be quiet 
is to be sleepy. Quakers never suffer thus, for they always 
keep awake in their silent meetings. Such a sleeper do 
not scold; but have for him a world of charity. What he 
needs is not a withering rebuke—only a box of pills! 

Sometimes the people sleep and it is the preacher’s fault. 
Not always. Under Paul, one man fell asleep, and in 
consequence gave his name to history, and became the 
immortal patron of all church sleepers. Not always the 
preacher's fault, but sometimes. When the voice is low 
and monotonous, and the matter heavy, and the manner 
dull, it is hard to keep awake. “ Which,” as Lincoln used 
to say, “reminds me of a little story.” Archibald Drowsy, 
D.D., was once prosing over his sermon in the pulpit. In 
the middle of it he looked up, and all his hearers had 
turned to sleepers, save one staring idiot in the front seat 
in the gallery. “Too bad!” cried Mr. Drowsy; “all are 
asleep save this poor, grinning idiot.’ Then came the 
unexpected response: “ An’ if I were not a poor, grinning 
idiot, I’d be asleep too.” 


XVIII. The Faults and Foibles of Sunday 
School Superintendents. Jy the Rev. VERNON 
J. CHARLESWORTH. 


HAVING seen a great many superintendents at their work, 
and believing they will be glad to have their faults indi- 
cated in a kindly spirit, I have ventured to write a few 
peges upon the subject. It is not my intention to wound 
their feelings, and that suspicion may not fasten upon any 


280 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS, 


individual in particular, I have avoided the mention of 
names and localities. To every reader who sustains the 
honourable office of superintendent of a Sunday-school, I 
would suggest the exercise of that charity which “beareth 
all things,” and a determination to “wear the cap if it 
- fits well.” 

1. The first of the series I shall designate Mr. Fastman. 
He seems to have received his inspiration from telegraphs 
and express trains. He is always in a hurry, meet him 
where you will, and comes as near perpetual motion as 
anything you are likely to see for the present. He never 
feels the sweet sense of repose, and despises slippers and 
an easy chair. Meditation and reflection are terms to 
which he is a total stranger, and the habits they define 
have no place in his arrangements. 

As Sunday brought no rest to his unquiet spirit, he 
entered the school as a teacher, and soon got promoted to 
the office of superintendent as a man of marvellous activity. 
He prides himself on his reputation, and justifies it by the 
speed with which he prosecutes the duties of his office. 
Entering the school, out of breath, he rushes up to the 
platform, bangs the desk with his Bible two or three times 
in rapid succession for order (?), gives out the opening 
hymn, and before any one has had sufficient time to find 
it, leads off the tune in true vigoroso style. The result is 
a very irregular fugue, as the teachers and scholars take 
up the various lines. Before the school has resolved itself 
into order he is some distance ahead with the prayer, and 
before the eyes of the more devout are opened he is at the 
end of the room to welcome a new teacher and conduct 
him to his class. “Glad to see you, my dear sir, amongst 
us. That will be your class. Boys, this is your new 
teacher.” And before the bewildered novice is duly seated, 
Mr. Fastman has almost been the round of the school, 
which he succeeds in keeping in a state of ferment during 
the whole time of teaching. The teachers wish he could 
be chained up for awhile or made to sit still, but he, good 
soul, thinks his activity most exemplary, and regrets his 
teachers are very slow. Could he but see himself as 
others see him, his crowning virtue would lose its charm, 
and he would come to the conclusion that all this haste 
hinders true progress, and that a bustling superintendent 


SUNDAY SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS. 281 


destroys that peace and quiet which are essential to order, 
devotion, and successful teaching. 

2. Ina neighbouring school is Mr. Fogey, a man about 
fifty years of age, short and thick-set, and very round- 
shouldered. The advancing tide of improvement has 
rolled on leaving him altogether unaffected. He wears a 
swallow-tail coat, with almost enough stuff in the collar 
to make a vest to match. Being a staunch conservative 
in everything, he deprecates change, and believes it as im- 
possible to improve the methods of our ancestors. His 
habits are regular, and his movements so uniform that he 
has worn a deep rut from which he never deviates. Pre- 
cedent is everything with him. His creed has been aptly 
defined as “ As-it-was-in-the-beginning-is-now-and-ever- 
shall-be-ism.” Faithful to his trust, he preserves every- 
thing as he found it twenty years ago, and denounces the 
new-fangled notions of his juniors. So dull and lifeless is 
he in the school, that the scholars are forced into a very 
natural protest by their playfulness and vivacity. The 
teachers find him a great obstructive, for he is opposed to 
the introduction of new class books, the rearrangement 
of the classes, and the modification of the dull routine of 
the school. In his own mind he regards himself as a 
martyr, and holds the belief that, after he has gone, the 
school will become the hotbed of infidelity, or be shut 
up with “Ichabod” written on the walls. Alas! poor 
man, could he but see the reflection of his own image 
as projected upon the minds of those around him, he 
would be convinced that his modes of thought and action 
are too antiquated to be of service, that old-fogeyism 
hinders prosperity, and that it is time enough to be con- 
servative when there are no improvements possible. 

3. The next on our list is Mr. Fidgets, a man of slender 
proportions, with razor-like features, and a restless eye. 
He took the fidgets when he was a child, and they have 
never left him. Few people give him credit for his good- 
ness, because he fails to give it expression. All about him 
feel uncomfortable for his presence. He is satisfied with 
nothing, and is always introducing alterations, which he 
‘calls improvements. During the teaching hours he annoys 
the steady-going teachers by his fidgety ways—altering 
the blinds, re-adjusting classes, directing attention to the 


282 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 


most trivial affairs, which might be left till the school was 
closed, and in a thousand ways meddling with the teachers, 
to their discomfort and disgust. Our fidgety friend boasts 
that he has never been absent from school excepting on 
two or three occasions, when he was unwell, and then he 
made his family unhappy by his irrepressible fidgets. We 
scarcely like to pronounce his disease incurable, for “while 
there is life there is hope,” and “it is a long lane that has 
no turning.” We would advise him to “study to be quiet,” 
and to “let well alone.” Should this advice be refused, 
then we think he should be called upon to resign, for his 
fidgets and fussiness have proved him incompetent for the 
discharge of the duties of his office. Our judgment may 
be deemed severe, but we contend it is just. Why should 
voluntary teachers suffer unnecessary discomfort in their 
work, and be thwarted in their earnest endeavours, by a 
superintendent who lacks that calm and quiet dignity so 
essential in a ruler? 

4. Mr. Fretful must not be omitted from the catalogue. 
He was born early in the month of April, 1823, and was 
brought up by a teetotal nurse, a member of a “ Hyper” 
church. He had water on the brain when he was very 
young, and was treated hydropathically for the disease. 
He was thus surrounded by the aqueous element from 
infancy, and always had a large reserve of tears for every 
occasion. From the age of fourteen he entered the employ 
of his maternal uncle, who brought him up as a hair- 
dresser, and ultimately left him his business. When he 
joined the church he undertook to teach the seventh girls’ 
class. His addresses were based upon pathetic narratives; 
and, being delivered in a most melancholy tone of voice, 
converted the school into a juvenile Bochim. On the death 
of the old superintendent he was elected successor. From 
the day he took office a gloom settled upon the faces of 
both teachers and scholars, which was rarely relieved by a 
smile. He moves about the school with the slow, 
solemn, measured step of an undertaker at a funeral 
on a dull November day. An awful sense of the solemnity 
of his office is depicted on his countenance, and he is 
always brooding over the darkest phases of human life and 
character. He has had the school walls hung with such 
texts as these :—“ The wicked shall be turned into hell,” 


SUNDAY SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS. 283 


“Flee from the wrath to come,” “Prepare to meet thy 
God,” etc. The hymns most frequently sung are funereal 
in their character, the changes being rung on the follow- 
ing :— 
There is a dreadful hell, 
And everlasting pains, 
Where sinners must with devils dwell 
In darkness, fire, and chains; 
and— 
Oft as the bell with solemn toll 
Speaks the departure of a soul, 
Let each one ask himself—am I 
Prepared should I be called to die? 


These are generally sung to minor tunes, written in semi- 
breves. The annual treat has been dispensed with, and 
entertainments are no longer tolerated. The school is 
about the dullest place in creation, and the children as 
miserable as they can well be. If the superintendent sees 
a boy playing at marbles, or leap-frog, he has a suspicion 
in his mind that he is not a Christian, and takes an 
opportunity the following Sunday of giving a homily on 
the sin of trifling, and concludes with the story of the chil- 
dren who left off playing to mock a prophet of God and 
were torn in pieces by two she-bears. Under such treat- 
ment the children associate religion with tears, and their 
idea of heaven is, that it is an awfully dull place, where 
they must sit still and be eternally singing uninteresting 
hymns. All this is pernicious in the extreme, and only a 
miracle of grace can prevent a reaction towards infidelity 
and ungodliness. But our good friend does not see the 
mischief he is working, he even ventures to hope the good 
seed may bear fruit “after many days.” It is a lamentable 
mistake to put a hypochondriac into such an office, and no 
delusion can be more fatal than that which expects chil- 
dren to become disciples of Christ through the influence of 
those who have no sympathy with childhood. 

5. The last I shall introduce to your notice is Mr. For- 
getful He is in love with his work, and on good terms 
with the teachers, but he has a fatal facility for forgetting 
things. One facetious friend suspects him of having 
swallowed a piece of sponge, which, having got into his 
head in some mysterious way, erases from the tablet of 


284 PLATFORM AIDS—MISCELLANEOUS. 


memory every impression that is made. He is quick in 
promise, but tardy in fulfilment. Many of his scholars 
have been promised books, but they have been disappointed 
so often that they do not expect them. Lectures and 
entertainments have been promised but never given. The 
teachers have been led to expect books and seats and other 
necessaries, but, alas! how rarely has their expectation 
been honoured! The order of school is frequently for- 
gotten, and sometimes the prayer is omitted from sheer 
forgetfulness. Notices are left on the desk until the school 
is dismissed, and the teachers are annoyed that an impor- 
tant meeting has passed by which they would have gone 
to had they known it in time. The anniversary is for- 
gotten till the time has gone by for making due prepara- 
tion. This weakness, or disease, or call it what you will, 
makes the teachers’ work difficult and annoying. Were 
they not gifted with a large measure of charity, they would 
throw up the work in disgust, or seek a more congenial 
sphere. If a man cannot remember his duties, how can 
he possibly discharge them ? 


INDEX OF 


Africa for Christ, 95. 

Alcohol and Health, 185. 

Allies, Our Unseen, 269. 

Anent “ Taking the Chair,” 256. 

Bible and the Priest, The, 165. 

Bible Circulation, The Motives 
to, 149. 

Bible on the Continent, The, 161. 

Bible, The Power of the, 168. 

Bible, The Silence of the, 139. 

Cartwright, Peter, 276. 

Children, The Conversion of, 39. 

Christian Giving, 18. 

Christian Literature, 7. 

Christian Press, The Power of, 1. 

Christian Union, 164. 

Civilization, The Shadows of, 228. 

Concrete Christianity, 129. 

Consistency, 271. 

Conversion of the World, too. 

Differences, Religious, 278. 

Doctors of Divinity, 275. 

Duty of Governments, The, 188. 

Giving, Systematic, 43. 

Go Forward, 127. 

Gospel in Africa, What it has 
done, 107. 

Gospel Propagation, The Root 
Idea of, 131. 

Gospel Victories, 130, 

Hearer, The Sleepy, 278. 

Holy Scriptures for its Designed 
End, The Fitness of, 157. 


SUBJECTS. 


Home Missions, 51. 

India, Christian Literature > 
125. 

Indian Missions, 114. 

Individual Responsibility, 20% 

Israel, Salvation of, 122. 

Jews, The, 82. 

Launch into the Deep, 24a, 

Listening, Good, 268. 

Licensing Laws, 180. 

Missions in South Africa, 112. 

Mission Work in London, 47. 

Missionary Qualifications, 57. 

Moffat, Dr., 277. 

Mosquito, The Religious, 272. 

New Year’s Address, A, 249. 

Parable, A, 260. 

Perils of the Age, The, 156. 

Picture Reversed, The, 172. 

Pioneer Preachers, 275. 

Popery, 16. 

Preaching, Textual, 275. 

Profession of Religion, 276. 

Progress, 117. 

Progress of Modern Unbelief and 
Christian Missions, 62. 

Stimulants, The Best, 187. 

Success and Secondary Agencies, 
25. 

Sunday Schools, 30. 

Superintendents, The Faults and 
Foibles of, 279. 


Teetotaler in the Slums, A, 186. 
98s 


286 


PLATFORM AIDS—INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 


Temperance Arguments, 176. 

Temperance higher than the Rule 
of Total Abstinence, The Law 
of, 198. 

Temperance in the Army and 
Navy, 178. 

Temperance Movement, The 
Church of England and the, 
169. 

Tract Distribution, The Value of, 


Vision of the King, The, 219. 

“We Knew that Before,” 265. 

Wesleyans and the Church of 
England, 46. 

What Doctors Say, 182. 

Word of God, The, 132. 

Work of the Church, The Aggres- 
sive, 8. 

Working with God, 71. 

Youth, 274. 


22. ‘Zeal, 274. 
DIVISIONS. 

PAGS 

Y. HOME WorRK . ° ° ° ° ot Neb hit I-57 
II. FOREIGN MISSIONS. e ° e * e §7-132 
III. BIBLE DISTRIBUTION . 7 * ° 132-169 
IV. TEMPERANCE . oven), haan a i 169-256 
V. MISCELLANEOUS SECTION . 5 e : 256-284 


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